Iran dismisses Israeli reports on Geneva talks with world powers

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister and senior negotiator Seyed Abbas Araqchi rejected the Zionist media speculations about the details of the recent talks between Tehran and the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany), and said they are after darkening the atmosphere between Iran and the international community. “Nothing is confirmed about the negotiations (with the G5+1) and the hues and cries of the enemy media is aimed at rocking the boat in the relations between Iran and the international community,” Araqchi told reporters in Tehran on Tuesday. “All what the western media say (about the contents of the recent Geneva talks) are mere speculations and the hidden hands of the Zionist media are darkening the media atmosphere from behind the scene,” he added. Araqchi stressed that Iran and the world powers have agreed in their last week negotiations in Geneva to keep the details of their negotiations confidential and merely speak about the general points of their discussions. He was also earlier asked about the Zionist media's claims about the details of the recent talks between Iran and the world powers in Geneva, which the two sides decided to keep confidential, and said, "They (Israel and the US) are no doubt partners and on the same front, but these are the Americans themselves who should prevent the destruction of the atmosphere of the negotiations." He, meantime, said that the other side has not revealed the details of the negotiations yet and the reports released about them are all media speculations. The Israeli daily Haaretz claimed that Iran’s proposal at the Geneva meeting last week, though general and open to question, indicated Tehran’s willingness to scale back its uranium enrichment program and discuss issues it had previously rejected out of hand, according to a high-ranking Israel official who was briefed on the talks. According to the Zionist daily, United States Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman, who led the US delegation to the talks, called Israeli National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror on Thursday and briefed him on the substance of the talks. In addition, members of the British delegation came straight to Israel from Geneva for talks with their Israeli colleagues, the daily added. Also Haaretz said that a UK delegation met with Strategic and Intelligence Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz and other top Israeli officials on Friday. Prior to that, senior French and German officials spoke by phone with their Israeli counterparts about the talks, the report said. Asked about the Israeli media reports, Araqchi once again rejected any negotiation on Tehran's right of enrichment, and asked the US not to put hurdles on the path of the Iran-powers talks. "Our position is completely clear on the enrichment issue; enrichment is the Iranian people's right and therefore this right is not negotiable and we will never negotiate over enrichment itself," Araqchi said in an interview with the Iran-based Arabic-language al-Alam news channel on Monday. "The dimensions, range, size and details of enrichment can be an issue for negotiations and as we have said, we are ready to pay attention to and remove the concerns, and not the excuses, of the other side," he added.