Iran negotiator: Both sides must ‘win together’

Iran’s foreign minister on Thursday said his nation could finalize a lasting nuclear deal — on any timetable — once both sides were pleased with the agreement’s details.

{mosads}“We can only have agreements in which both sides can claim that they have achieved positive results,” Mohammad Javad Zarif said in Athens, according to Reuters.

“You need to either win together, or lose together,” he added in a press conference following a meeting with his Greek counterpart.

Zarif urged the U.S. and its allies not to deviate from a tentative framework reached by both parties in Lausanne, Switzerland, last month.

Doing so, he said, would risk threatening the credibility of negotiations before the pact’s June 30 final deadline.

“If the other side respects what has been agreed in Lausanne and tries to draft, based on mutual respect, a comprehensive agreement with Iran that is sustainable … then we can meet any deadline,” Zarif said, according to Reuters.

“If people insist on excessive demands, on renegotiation, then it will be difficult to envisage an agreement even without a deadline,” he added.

“I am hopeful we will reach a final conclusion within a reasonable period of time,” Zarif said, the news service reported.

“In order to do that people need to be realistic, people need to have their foot in reality, not in illusions.”

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius announced that his country considers limitless access to Iranian military sites a crucial part of any final accord.

“France will not accept (a deal) if it is not clear that inspections can be done at all Iranian installations, including military sites,” Fabius told the French Parliament on Wednesday.

Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), echoed those requirements during his own remarks the same day.

“Some consideration is needed because of the sensitiveness of the site, but the IAEA has the right to request access to all locations, including military ones,” he said.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, rejected those requests last week, Reuters said.

The U.S. and its allies are hoping they can stop Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons peacefully in exchange for reducing economic sanctions against Tehran. Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia have aided America on its side of the bargaining table — which is made up of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany.