TEHRAN (FNA)- Senior Iranian negotiator and Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araqchi dismissed the possibility of Iran's withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).


"Iran will never go after building nuclear weapons and nuclear breakout, and withdrawal from the NPT is not on our agenda at all," Araqchi said in an interview with Iran-based Arabic-language al-Alam news website on Saturday.

Asked about media reports that Iran and the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany) have reached an agreement but they have not announced it yet, he said, "This is more like a joke. Such a thing is not true and no agreement has been made and if any agreement is struck, certainly the Iranian people and the entire world will be made aware."

Araqchi expressed the hope that Tehran and the world powers could reach an agreement before the November 24 deadline, and said, "At present, we don’t have any motivation for extending the talks and are now just focused on reaching an agreement."

He said although the two sides have not reach a final agreement, the conditions will not return to the situation that existed before the interim agreement that was sealed by Iran and the six powers in Geneva on November 24, 2013, anyway.

Tehran and the six powers have had seven rounds of talks in Vienna, and one more in New York and on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. They are now preparing for their 9th round of negotiations due to be held in Masqat, Oman, on November 11.

The Geneva agreement took effect on January 20 and expired six months later on July 20. In July, Tehran and the six countries agreed to extend negotiations until November 24 after they failed to reach an agreement on a number of key issues.

Late in October, China’s representative in the G5+1 nuclear talks with Iran Wang Qun appreciated Tehran for its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors beyond expectations and its undertakings under the NPT.

"Iran has hosted all IAEA inspectors and Iran has been committed to its undertakings more than all other countries which have singed the NPT, and this became more obvious specially after the 6-month (Geneva) agreement (between Tehran and the world powers)," Wang Qun, who also serves as director general of the department of arms control at China's Foreign Ministry, said in a meeting with Iranian Supreme Leader's senior advisor Ali Akbar Velayati in Tehran.

He underlined that Iran has acted beyond expectations in a bid to resolve its nuclear dispute with the West.

By Fars News Agency

 

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