No serious obstacle to final nuclear accord: Iran FM

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has dismissed speculations over the existence of “serious obstacles” in the way of a final agreement on Tehran’s civilian nuclear work.

“I don’t think we have serious obstacles,” Zarif said in a Saturday interview with China’s CCTV channel.

“There are possibilities, various ways and means of making sure that Iran’s nuclear program will remain exclusively peaceful, and at the same time ensuring that all the restrictions that, from our perspective, have unjustifiably restricted Iran’s trade with other countries, are lifted.” he added.

Zarif further underlined the importance of China’s role in efforts to settle the issues regarding Tehran’s nuclear dossier, noting, “We believe China plays an instrumental role in moving forward this agenda of finding a mutually acceptable resolution to this issue.”

Iran and the P5+1 group -- Russia, China, France, Britain, the US and Germany -- are in talks to work out a final deal aimed at ending the longstanding standoff over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear energy program as a November 24 deadline draws near.

Sources close to the Iranian negotiating team say the main stumbling block in the way of resolving the Western dispute over Iran’s nuclear energy program remains to be the removal of all the bans imposed on the country, and not the number of centrifuges or the level of uranium enrichment.

Tehran wants the sanctions entirely lifted while Washington, under pressure from the pro-Israeli lobby, insists that at least the UN-imposed sanctions should remain in place.

Zarif, US Secretary of State John Kerry and outgoing EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton are slated to meet in the Omani capital Muscat on November 9-10 to discuss steps toward a comprehensive final deal on Iran’s nuclear energy program.