Oman calls for negotiations over Iran’s nuclear energy program

The Persian Gulf kingdom of Oman has called for negotiations between Iran and the West to resolve the Western dispute over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear energy program.

“It is in the interest of both sides to come to the middle road,” Yousuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah, the sultanate’s minister responsible for foreign affairs, told Reuters in the Omani capital, Muscat, on Sunday.

“Still there is time, but not long, to seize opportunities where the six [members of the P5+1] - comprising Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany - and Iran can meet at a middle road to find a solution to this issue,” Abdullah said.

Iran and the P5+1 have already held two rounds of multifaceted talks, one in Geneva in December 2010 and another in Istanbul, Turkey in January 2011.

Tehran says it is ready to continue the negotiations based on common ground.

Abdullah also called for more focus on establishing facts on the ground and said that the Western concerns over Iran’s nuclear energy program could get out of hand.

The United States, the Israeli regime, and some of their allies have repeatedly accused Iran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear program. Washington and Tel Aviv have at times threatened Tehran with the "option" of a military strike against its civilian nuclear facilities.

On March 15, Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said that, despite Tel Aviv’s escalating war rhetoric against Iran, the Israeli regime is too small to survive even one week of real war.

“First of all, we take every little threat serious even if it comes from the weakest country in the world,” he said in an interview with Danish television channel TV2.

However, the top Iranian diplomat added that Iran does not consider Israeli claims or threats as real.

Iran refutes the Western allegation regarding its nuclear energy program, and argues that as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

The IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities, but has never found any evidence indicating that Tehran's civilian nuclear program has been diverted to nuclear weapons production.

MP/GHN/HJL

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