“Today, the opposite negotiating sides have reached the conclusion that pressure and sanctions on Iran will not bear fruit,” Rouhani said in a live television interview on Monday after Iran and the six countries agreed to extend the nuclear talks for seven months.
He added that the Islamic Republic would never give up its nuclear rights, saying that the country’s nuclear facilities would certainly remain operational and Iran would never stop its centrifuges.
He noted that Iran pursues two main objectives in its talks with the P5+1 group, which include keeping its nuclear technology and lifting sanctions on Tehran.
“At present, no one in the world has any doubt that Iran must have nuclear technology, including enrichment on its soil, and no one has any doubt that sanctions must be lifted,” Rouhani added.
The Iranian president also pointed out that the Iranian nation will be the final winner in the negotiations with the P5+1 countries over Tehran’s nuclear program.
Rouhani emphasized that the path of nuclear negotiations would lead to a final agreement, noting that all the sides in the nuclear talks had consensus on the extension of the nuclear talks as an effort to reach a final goal.
“Iran’s logic is one of negotiations and dialog; and nuclear talks will be continued with seriousness until a final agreement is struck,” he said.
Stressing that the latest round of nuclear talks in Vienna was positive, Rouhani added that although the negotiating sides failed to reach a final agreement, they managed to take steps forward because the conditions now are “completely different from [what they were] three months and six months ago, logics have come closer together and may of gaps have been filled.”
The sides took steps to reach an understanding and a final agreement “but reaching a written and final agreement needs time,” he added.
In their last round of talks before a November 24 deadline for reaching a comprehensive nuclear deal, Iran and the P5+1 countries — the United States, Russia, China, Germany, France and Britain — held nearly a week of intense negotiations in Vienna on how to tackle the remaining obstacles that exist in the way of reaching an agreement.
At the end of the talks, the two sides agreed to extend the Joint Plan of Action to July 1, 2015.
