Iran favors nuclear agreement by Nov. deadline

A senior Iranian official says the Islamic Republic favors a final agreement with P5+1 over Tehran’s nuclear energy program by the November 24 deadline.

Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior advisor to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, made the remarks on Saturday after a meeting with Norwegian Foreign Minister Børge Brende in Tehran.

He said Iran has always favored negotiations for the resolution of outstanding issues, adding that Tehran opted for talks in the nuclear issue to defuse “provocations by some Western countries” against the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.

Velayati, who is also President of the Expediency Council’s Center for Strategic Research, said Iran’s nuclear facilities, including Natanz, Arak and Fordow, have been open to inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

He noted that all reports by the UN nuclear body confirmed that there has been no military diversion in Iran’s nuclear energy program.

Iran and P5+1 – the United States, France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany – are in talks to work out a final deal aimed at ending the longstanding dispute over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear energy program as a November 24 deadline approaches.

Sources close to the Iranian negotiating team say the main stumbling block in the way of resolving the Western dispute over Iran’s nuclear energy program remains to be the removal of all the bans imposed on the country, and not the number of centrifuges or the level of uranium enrichment.

Tehran wants the sanctions entirely lifted while Washington, under pressure from the pro-Israeli lobby, insists that at least the UN-imposed sanctions should remain in place.