Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi announced on Wednesday that newly elected Iranian President Hassan Rouhani will once again head up Iran's nuclear negotiation team. The next negotiation round of the P5+1 group [the five permanent members of UN Security Council plus Germany] will also be overseen by an investigative body, all of whom will be personally handpicked by Rouhani. During a joint press conference with the Foreign Minister of Tajikistan, Salehi responded to questions regarding the next steps toward nuclear negotiations. "Mr. Rouhani will make the decision on when the next round of talks will occur and when he has the intention of meeting with the P5+1," he said.
On April 6, Iran and the P5+1 group held nuclear talks in the capital of Kazakhstan, Almaty, with no practical results. The next talks on the nuclear program between Iran and the P5+1 might again be held in Kazakhstan.
During her June 17 press conference in Baghdad, Baroness Catherine Ashton told reporters, "Now we will wait for the establishment of the new government. I will continue with my work to urge Iran to work closely with me and the European community to build confidence in the nature of a nuclear programme."
In a report regarding the nuclear negotiations, the Iranian regime's daily newspaper Tehran'eh Emrooz cited Javier Solana's fawning declaration to and about his familiar negotiating counterpart. According to this daily, Solana's letter is a carte blanche approval of Rouhani, and claims that Solana is, in effect, guaranteeing that the West would comply should the Iranian regime's actions, represented in the negotiations by Rouhani be "transparent."
It is important to note that after Ahmadinejad's presidential victory in 2006, when Rouhani was replaced as nuclear negotiator, his actions and negotiation tactics truly became "transparent" when, during a speech at the assembly of clerics, he was caught on tape, showing off about duping the EU. He admitted that while the negotiations were taking place in Teheran, Iran was able to complete the installation of equipment for the conversion of yellowcake uranium, make backdoor deals with Pakistan's A.Q. Khan for importing centrifuges, while at the same time appeasing European diplomats by convincing them that nothing was afoot. "From the outset, the Americans kept telling the Europeans, 'The Iranians are lying and deceiving you and they have not told you everything.' The Europeans used to respond, 'We trust them,'" he said.
