nuclear-news

Iran’s supreme leader curbing hard liners against America

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s comments will help shield Rouhani, who has sought to thaw relations with the West since his surprise election in June, from accusations of being soft on the United States, often characterized in the Islamic Republic as the “Great Satan”.

Iran will resume negotiations with six world powers, including the United States, in Geneva on Thursday, talks aimed at ending a standoff over its nuclear work that Tehran denies is weapons-related. Rouhani hopes a deal there will mean an end to sanctions that have cut the OPEC country’s oil exports and hurt the wider economy, but any concession that looks like Iran is compromising on what it sees as its sovereign right to peaceful nuclear technology will be strongly resisted by conservatives.

“No one should consider our negotiators as compromisers,” Khamenei said in a speech, a day before the November 4 anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, a pivotal event in U.S.-Iranian relations, the ISNA news agency reported.

“They have a difficult mission and no one must weaken an official who is busy with work,” said Khamenei, who wields ultimate power in Iran’s dual clerical-republic system, including over the nuclear program. ENEMY WHO SMILES

Hardline factions, who oppose any thaw in relations with the United States, have criticized Rouhani’s negotiating team for not releasing details of the proposal they made to world powers at a previous round of talks in Geneva last month.

They have also resisted calls from moderate Iranian newspapers and prominent figures including former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to drop the “Death to America” chant, often heard at Friday prayers throughout Iran……..

In September, U.S. President Barack Obama insisted that the United States would “take no options off the table, including military options, in terms of making sure that we do not have nuclear weapons in Iran.” http://ca.news.yahoo.com/khamenei-tells-irans-hardliners-not-undermine-nuclear-talks-120352798.html

November 4, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, politics international