A senior foreign ministry official said on Saturday the Geneva agreement between Iran and the major powers was a turning point in the relations between Iran and the world community, adding that Washington failed in its efforts to maintain the status quo and continue isolating Tehran with economic sanctions.
Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said, "(Following the Geneva agreement) many countries worldwide expressed their interest to do business with Iran. Such enthusiasm alarmed Washington to the degree that it was forced to remind the world that anti-Iran sanctions remain in force and are only partially eased based on what was agreed in Geneva; in my opinion those efforts have been to a great extent unsuccessful."
Araqchi made the remarks in an exclusive interview with the Tejarat-e Farda weekly published on Saturday.
Iran and the six major powers (the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany) failed to meet a second self-imposed deadline in November to reach a comprehensive settlement to the long-running dispute over Tehran's nuclear work and decided to extend the negotiations on a final deal for seven more months until the end of next June. They held a new round of talks in Geneva, Switzerland last month.
Under an interim nuclear accord with the major powers, which was signed in November 2013 in Geneva, Tehran agreed to temporarily scale down parts of its nuclear activities in exchange for a limited easing of sanctions.
With the Geneva agreement, the world has realized that Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) are close to striking a deal and "as a result, fractures appeared in the commotion that western countries have created against Iran," said Araqchi, who is a senior member of the nuclear negotiating team.
He referred to the example of Japan's relations with Iran and said Japan like many other countries has expressed an interest in investing in Iran's upstream oil and gas industries and "They are currently conducting feasibility studies for their future presence in Iran following the conclusion of a final (nuclear) deal."
"Under such circumstances, Japan restored banking ties with Iran," the diplomat noted.
