Optimism Grows in Tehran as Nuclear Talks Progress, Sanctions Relief in Sight. for the first time in a long time, there is a lot of optimism. Both the government and people that we are speaking to here are pinning their hopes that the United States and Iran will reach an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program.
And both the government and Iranians hope that if an agreement is reached—and there are more talks scheduled on Saturday in Oman—that it could lead to the lifting of sanctions, allowing Iranians to engage economically with the rest of the world, which is something that people here desperately want.
It is virtually impossible to do business with Iran right now. It is very difficult for Iranians to travel, to trade. They are in a sanctions box. They want out of that box, and they hope that if there is a deal, that could happen.
They also hope that if there is a deal, that this country won’t be attacked. And President Trump has said repeatedly that the military option is still on the table should these talks fall apart.
And Iran is now starting to take steps it believes will encourage this process. The IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that Iran has just agreed to allow more inspections, to give more transparency to its nuclear program, which it insists is strictly for civilian use.
We went to Iran’s parliament. We met with a ranking member of the National Security Committee. He said that Iran doesn’t want a nuclear weapon, is open to inspections, is open to proving to the world that it is not trying to build a bomb, doesn’t want to build a bomb.
But he said already, the line is that Iran wants to maintain a civilian nuclear program so that it can have nuclear power, can produce radioactive isotopes for medicine. And that is where the issue lies.
Can Iran have a civilian program that Israel, that the United States, that other countries believe is controlled enough and doesn’t pose a risk to prevent a… and allow sanctions to be lifted? And here right now, there is quite a bit of optimism that a deal could be reached.
Negotiations are moving quite quickly, but because of this issue—this issue of enrichment—the deal could collapse. We will be watching very closely what happens in Oman for these latest talks on Saturday.
Source: raialkhalij + aljazeera