Rouhani vows not to reveal Iran’s nuclear ‘secrets’ to foreigners

TEHRAN: Iran will never allow its state secrets to be accessed by foreigners under the pretext of international treaties or conventions, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Saturday.

There are still “many differences over details” of a nuclear deal Iran and world powers are trying to conclude by June 30, he told a press conference on the occasion of the second anniversary of his election.

Responding to a question on whether Iran will allow inspections of military sites and interviews with Iranian nuclear scientists as part of a potential deal with the P5+1, he, however, added that the mechanism and timeframe of the implementation of the measures to a potential deal are still being discussed in the nuclear negotiations.

Iran’s potential voluntary acceptance of the additional protocol, the president said, would merely be to contradict the false accusation that Iran is after building nuclear bombs.

Rouhani said the achievements of his administration in safeguarding the nuclear rights of the Islamic Republic were a big victory for the nation.

Iranian negotiators and those of the P5+1 group (Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States) are meeting in Vienna to clinch a deal that would guarantee the strictly peaceful nature of Tehran’s nuclear programme in exchange for a lifting of punishing international sanctions.

“We are very serious in the negotiations. We do not seek to gain time, but at the same time we are not captives of time. We are not in a hurry but we try to use every opportunity to reach a good deal,” said the president.

On Friday, a senior Russian official said there had been a “very worrying” slowdown in progress in the talks.

“This is very worrying to us because there is very little time before the deadline and we urgently need to enter the final stage,” said chief Moscow negotiator Sergei Ryabkov–AFP/Geo News