Powers’ Excessive Demands Root Cause of Differences with Iran

(FNA)- A senior member of the Iranian team of negotiators stressed that the nuclear talks with the world powers will seriously continue by July 20, while the excessive demands made by the other side are the root cause of the differences between the two sides.

"The differences over the main issues have still remained in place and what we can say is that the negotiations will continue seriously by July 20," the Iranian negotiator, who called for anonymity, said in an interview with the Islamic republic news agency on Tuesday.

The diplomat repeated the earlier remarks by Iranian top negotiators that "nothing is agreed until an agreement is reached over everything".

"It is clear that we will reach an agreement if the other side doesn’t conceal the realities and doesn’t raise excessive demands," he added.

The sixth round of talks between Tehran and the Group 5+1 (the US, Britain, France, Russia and China plus Germany) headed by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and EU's Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton officially started in Vienna on July 3 and is still continuing in the Austrian capital with both sides describing the negotiations as hard, but constructive and positive.

On Saturday, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araqchi said the seven nations have made over 60% progress in drafting the text of a final deal, although wide differences have still remained over the contents of the agreement.

"We have made almost good progress in the text and maybe 60% to 65% of the text has been agreed, but this doesn’t mean that we have made progress in the contents," Araqchi said in Vienna.

"We have not yet reached a major agreement on the key content issues," he added.

Araqchi also underlined Iran's determination to continue the negotiations to restore all its rights, and said, "We won't withdraw from our positions."