Iran Dictator: Nuclear framework no guarantee of deal

From the Times of Israel, 9 April 2015, by AFP and Jonathan Beck:

Breaking silence, Ali Khamenei blasts White House for ‘lying’ on fact sheet; warns ‘it’s too early to congratulate’

Iran's Dictator Ayatollah Ali Khamenei 

(screen capture: YouTube/PressTVGlobalNews)

A framework nuclear deal reached with world powers last week is no guarantee a full agreement will be secured by the end of June, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Thursday.

“What has been done so far does not guarantee an agreement, nor its contents, nor even that the negotiations will continue to the end,” Khamenei, who has the final word on all matters of state, said on his official website.

In the first comments by the supreme leader since the Lausanne framework agreement, an evasive Khamenei said he was “neither for it or against it.”

The supreme leader also addressed the discrepancies between the US and Iranian accounts of the terms of the framework agreement, accusing the White House of lying.

“I trust our negotiators but I’m really worried as the other side is into lying and breaching promises; an example was White House fact sheet,” he wrote on Twitter. “Hours after the talks, Americans offered a fact sheet that most of it was contrary to what was agreed. They always deceive and breach promises.”

Ever since the framework agreement was announced last week, the various parties have set out sometimes sharply differing accounts of what has been agreed, provoking escalating controversy and criticism over the deal. The Iranian Foreign Ministry on Friday issued its own fact sheet, which differs starkly with the official American parameters and with the French fact sheet seen by The Times of Israel.

Six key discrepancies between the US and Iranian documents, some of them at the very heart of the framework agreement announced in Lausanne, Switzerland, last Thursday, were highlighted by an Israeli expert on Saturday.

Khamenei maintained that the understandings secured in Switzerland are not binding and said “the details” in the final deal will determine whether an agreement is signed.

“It’s all about the details. The disloyal side may want to stab Iran in the back over the details; it is too early to congratulate,” Khamenei wrote on Twitter.

The supreme leader said he backs the negotiators and supports a deal “which ensures [the] nation’s interests,” adding that “no deal is favorable to a deal against Iran interests and dignity.”

Earlier on Thursday, President Hassan Rouhani said that Tehran would not sign a final nuclear deal with world powers unless all sanctions against the Islamic Republic were removed immediately.

“We will not sign any agreements unless on the first day of the implementation of the deal all economic sanctions are totally lifted on the same day,” Rouhani said in a televised speech.

Iran and six world powers reached a framework agreement last week aimed at keeping Tehran from being able to develop a nuclear weapon. No text was signed or finalized, and there are major discrepancies over what was agreed, including over the process of sanctions relief.

The deal is to be finalized by the end of June.

It is meant to curb Iran’s nuclear program while giving Tehran quick access to bank accounts, oil markets and financial assets blocked by international sanctions.

The pace at which the sanctions will be lifted is one of the many outstanding issues that still has to be agreed in the final accord.

Western governments, which have imposed their own sanctions over and above those adopted by the United Nations, have been pushing for it to happen only gradually.