Iran’s foreign minister reports to parliament on nuclear talks

Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, has updated parliament in a closed-door session on the latest developments in the nuclear talks and the four-month extension signed July 18 with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. Meanwhile, domestic critics from the more hard-line factions have stepped up their attacks on negotiating at all with the United States.

Mohammad Reza Tabesh, a Reformist member of parliament, told Iranian Students’ News Agency that parliament “praised and accepted that the negotiation team worked in the path of national interests.” Tabesh admitted that some members of parliament had specific criticism, but described the sessions as overall “welcomed by the members of parliament.”

Although there was no question-and-answer session, other members of parliament said that they had had two main questions for Zarif and that his answers “left no doubts.” No one has yet reported on what these two questions were.

A member of parliament’s presiding board said, “From the beginning, the negotiators were in pursuit of the country’s needs of enrichment of 190,000 SWU [separative work units].” On July 7, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that Iran would need 190,000 SWU as its ultimate goal. Days later, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization clarified that while 190,000 SWU is the country’s goal, the number of centrifuges depends on the type of centrifuges and how many SWU each one produces.