Israel, S. Arabia See Iran-US Ties against Their Interests: Gary Sick
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A prominent American academic and analyst of Middle East affairs said that Tel Aviv and Riyadh are concerned about the improvement of relations between Iran and the US and see it against their national interests.
In a recent interview released by the American–Iranian Council (AIC), Gary Sick discussed about possible deal between Iran and six world powers on Tehran’s peaceful nuclear program and the improvement of relations between Iran and the US as well as the reason behind Israel and Saudi Arabia's opposition to the nuclear deal.
“They (Saudi Arabia and Israel) are not worried about Iran getting a nuclear weapon, because basically Iran has had 20 years to build a nuclear weapon and it really has not done that,” he said, adding, they are concerned about a shift in balance of power in favor of the Islamic republic.
However, the senior analyst emphasized that reaching a deal between Iran and the Group 5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) is really hard.
“For the United states particularly, this deal is basically a four dimensional chess game, you have the Americans negotiating with Iran, but they also had to negotiate with the P5+1 and all of the permanent members of the (UN) Security Council negotiating with partners had to go along. We had to make sure they were on board the same way, then you have the congress of the United stets, which is not an easy thing to deal with for any president, specially right now.”
“And finally you have got the position abroad, of Israel and the Saudis and others see Iran as an implacable enemy and they want nothing to do with it and they are very worried about the United States doing the deal that would actually harm their interests, so you have got a four-part negotiation going on. It is hard to do,” Sick noted.
His remarks came after negotiators from Iran and the Group 5+1 wrapped the latest round of talks on Tehran’s peaceful nuclear program in Switzerland’s Geneva on December 17.
The Swiss city will reportedly once again host the next round of talks before January 20, 2015.
Iran and the Group 5+1 (also known as the P5+1 or E3+3) have decided to extend for more 7 months a self-imposed deadline for signing a comprehensive nuclear agreement.
The negotiations aim to hammer out a final agreement to end more than a decade of impasse over Tehran’s peaceful nuclear program.
