Davoud Mohammadnia, an advisor to the Iranian Foreign Minister who is also a member of the Iranian negotiating team in the talks with the world powers, said the western states are using Tehran's nuclear program only as a pretext to pressure Iran and will seek other excuses to keep this pressure in place if the nuclear standoff is resolved.
"We should say that the nuclear case is just a pretext for the West and they will go after another challenge for confronting and limiting Iran after the settlement of this issue," Mohammadnia said, addressing university students in the Western city of Hamedan on Saturday afternoon.
He stressed the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program, and said this has been repeatedly confirmed in the reports of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Mohammadnia also referred to the recent nuclear talks between Iran and the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany), and said the recent round was different from the previous ones since the talks moved along a specified roadmap.
His remarks came after Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei underlined that the dispute over nuclear program is politicized, used as a pretext to put pressure on the Islamic Republic, slow down its scientific/technological progress, and contain its influence across the region and beyond.
According to Ayatollah Khamenei earlier this year, even if Iran and the G5+1 clinch an accord, the West will come up with new excuses to antagonize Tehran.
The 10th and last round of negotiations between Iran and the six world powers was held in Vienna from November 18 to 24.
In July, Tehran and the six countries agreed to extend negotiations until November 24 after they failed to reach an agreement on a number of key issues.
After the last round of the Vienna talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and EU coordinator Catherine Ashton announced that the deadline for negotiations had been extended until July 10, and the world powers had taken up to release $700 million of Iran's frozen assets on a monthly basis.