‘Talks between Iran, Europe could pave the way for increased cooperation’

TEHRAN,Jan.21(MNA) – Hassan Rohani, Iran’s former chief nuclear negotiator said that “constructive” bilateral talks between Iran and Europe on the country’s nuclear program could pave the way for increased cooperation. “If Europe was able to hold constructive and separate talks with Iran on our country’s peaceful nuclear activities and legitimate rights like in the years 2003 and 2004, bilateral relations between Europe and Iran and regional (countries) could certainly be directed toward expansion of useful political and economic cooperation,” Rohani, the current director of the Strategic Research Center of the Expediency Council, said during a meeting with Norwegian Ambassador to Iran Jens-Petter Kjemprud in Tehran on Sunday. He also described international sanctions, particularly the West’s unilateral sanctions, against Iran as unjust and wrong, and said, “The sanctions have had harmful and unjustifiable effects on the Iranian people’s lives, even in the areas of health and medicine.” In view of the fact that Iran has closely cooperated with the International Atomic Energy Agency over the past 10 years, there is no justification for adopting resolutions against and imposing sanction on Iran, he added. Ambassador Kjemprud, for his part, called for increased political and technological cooperation between Iran and Norway. Elsewhere in his remarks, he praised the Iranian government for introducing initiatives to help resolve the Syrian issue and called for an immediate end to the unrest in the crisis-hit country.