Zarif Briefs Iranian Lawmakers on Talks with US Officials


Zarif Briefs Iranian Lawmakers on Talks with US Officials

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif briefed members of Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission on outcomes of Iranian delegation’s recent New York visit days after his return from the US.

“We believe the president’s phone conversation with (US President Barack) Obama was among those cases that the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution had earlier referred to as 'untimely', and the decision to do so was not proper,” Zarif was quoted as having said at the parliamentary commission on Sunday evening by Mansour Haqiqatpour, Vice-Chairman of the Commission.

“The foreign minister said at the session with parliament members that the Americans should have taken many steps before we answered their phone call,” Haqiqatpour added.

Further elaborating on the Iranian foreign minister’s explanations at the parliamentary commission, Haqiqatpour said the foreign minister also believed his meeting with the US Secretary of State John Kerry, too, should have finished in four, five minutes, and considered his long talks with his US counterpart as another example of an untimely action.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his US counterpart Barack Obama talked over the phone as the Iranian official was on his way to leave New York City after the 68th annual session of the United Nations General Assembly on September 28.

The two presidents reportedly discussed different issues during their 15-minute-long phone conversation.

Both Rouhani and Obama underlined the need for a political will for resolving the West’s standoff with Iran over the Tehran’s peaceful nuclear program, the official website of the Iranian president reported.

On September 27 Zarif referred to his meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry after their talks, saying, “We also had a short bilateral discussion with Secretary Kerry after the meeting in which we stressed the need to continue these discussions to give it the political impetus it requires and hopefully to reach a conclusion within a reasonable time.”

In separate remarks after the meeting, John Kerry called the talks as “constructive," saying "We've agreed to try to continue a process that would try to make concrete and find a way to answer the questions that people have about Iran's nuclear program."

Kerry described the meeting as constructive, but said "there's a lot of work to be done" with questions still remaining about Iran's nuclear energy program.

 

 

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