Azerbaijan, Baku, May 16 /Trend S.Isayev, T. Jafarov/
The Western states do not want to close diplomatic doors with Iran regarding the talks on country's nuclear program, expert on Iran and Middle East, Reza Taghizadeh told Trend.
Commenting on the recent talks that Iran held with IAEA and P5+1 group, Taghizadeh explained the different statements made by Catherine Ashton and senior International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) official Herman Nackaerts.
"Both talks that Iran held with IAEA and P5+1 were unsuccessful, however Iranians are always interested in showing that the talks were not seen as failure," Taghizadeh said.
Iran's representatives held two separate talks on May 15, one in Vienna (Iran-IAEA), and also in Turkey's Istanbul (Saeed Jalili met with Catherine Ashton).
After the talks, Catherine Ashton said they were useful, and the sides both expressed hope to continue negotiations. In case with Iran-IAEA talks, in a recent statement, Nackaerts said that Iran and international nuclear inspectors couldn't reach an agreement on starting a probe into Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program, whereas Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili noted that the talks were "good and useful".
"The Iranians are playing with words, and use words like "useful" or "positive", which in diplomatic language means that the results were no good," Taghizadeh said.
The expert further said that EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and the international community want to keep the situation from looking too critical, so that the new Iranian president would not face difficulties instantly.
"They do not want to limit their relations with Iran," Taghizadeh believes.
Iran will hold the 11th presidential election on June 14, 2013. The voters will select the successor of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is not able to participate in the elections for the third term according to the country's constitutional laws. The president of Iran is elected for a four-year term.
"On the other hand, Ms. Ashton doesn't want to show that the last meeting with Saeed Jalili was deemed as unsuccessful," Taghizadeh said. "This is because these people have been working with each other for the last 3-4 years."
Since Saeed Jalili has submitted his registration for the presidential race among with other hopefuls, it is possible that his May 15 meeting with Catherine Ashton could have been the last one.
The U.S. and its Western allies suspect Iran of developing a nuclear weapon - something that Iran denies.
The Islamic Republic has on numerous occasions stated that it does not seek to develop nuclear weapons, using nuclear energy for medical researches instead.
The IAEA, whose mission is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, has been trying to negotiate a so-called structured approach with Iran giving the inspectors access to sites, officials and documents for their long-stalled inquiry.
Iran and the IAEA have already met for nine rounds of talks since late 2011. Their last meeting was held in the Iranian capital Tehran in mid-February.
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