Group 5+1 to Be Held Accountable for Possible Failure of Iran Nuclear Talks: Cleric

“All responsibility for any obstacle in the way of negotiations between Iran and the (Group) 5+1 will lie with the 5+1 itself, not with Iran, and this is an important point,” Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani said Friday, addressing a large congregation of worshippers in Tehran on Friday.

He said nobody can put the blame for the possible failure of talks on Iran because the Islamic Republic has already voiced its strong opposition to the nuclear weapons under the fatwas declaring that the production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons are religiously prohibited.

Ayatollah Emami Kashani also reaffirmed that Iran will not retreat from its right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Iran and the G5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany) in November last year signed an interim deal, known as the Geneva Agreement, on Tehran’s nuclear case.

Based on the interim deal (the Joint Plan of Action), the world powers agreed to suspend some non-essential sanctions and to impose no new nuclear-related bans in return for Tehran's decision to suspend its 20% enrichment for a period of six months.

The two sides wrapped up a week of intensive nuclear talks in Vienna on November 24 without reaching a long-awaited deal they were supposed to hammer out by the self-imposed November 24 deadline.

Negotiations between Iran and the sextet aim to hammer out a final agreement to end more than a decade of impasse over Tehran’s peaceful nuclear program.

The two sides concluded a round of deputy-level 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.