US negotiator: World would judge Iran deal to be 'a good thing'

The Obama administration’s top negotiator to the Iran talks says the world would hail a nuclear agreement between Tehran and the P5+1 group if the two sides manage to hammer it out this year.

Speaking at Washington’s Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Friday, Wendy Sherman said, “If we were able to do it, the world would judge it as a good thing.”

The US undersecretary of state for political affairs said that striking a “good deal” with Iran is “very difficult, very complicated, [and] very tough” and “should we be so fortunate as to reach it”, the world would cheer it.

“I spent much of the past week in Europe engaged in negotiations with Iran and our multilateral partners regarding Tehran’s nuclear program,” she said.

Iran and the P5+1 group of  states – the United States, Britain, France, China, Russia, and Germany –  are holding negotiations to narrow remaining differences ahead of a July 1 deadline for the final agreement.

Sherman said the United States is seeking an agreement that ensures that “Iran cannot acquire a nuclear weapon and that all of the pathways to fissile material for a nuclear weapon are shut down.”

“And that is our objective and that is the metric we have to meet for what we would consider to be a good, durable, and sustainable agreement,” she added.

The United States, Israel, and some of their allies accuse Iran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear energy program.

Washington and its allies have imposed illegal sanctions on Iran based on the unfounded accusation that Tehran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear program.

Iran rejects the allegation, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the IAEA, it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

In addition, the IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence showing that Iran's civilian nuclear program has been diverted to nuclear weapons production.

This week, Al Jazeera television network released a secret Mossad cable which revealed that Israel has been aware that Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful and does not include “the activity necessary to produce weapons.”

The Israeli spy agency’s top-secret cable, leaked on February 23, concluded that Iran was “not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons.”

A similar CIA report, leaked on February 20, disclosed that Washington tried to mislead the IAEA about Iran’s nuclear program through the provision of doctored evidence.

The Mossad and CIA's leaked information appears to attest Iran’s argument that it is pursuing non-military goals in its nuclear program.

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