Israel’s questions about nuclear deal are being echoed in Iran - Middle East - Israel News

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  • Israel’s questions about nuclear deal are being echoed in Iran
    As Israel and many Arab states express concern about the framework nuclear agreement, not everybody is dancing in the streets of Tehran, either.
    By Zvi Bar’el | Apr. 5, 2015 Haaretz
    http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/.premium-1.650582

    Iranian MP Alireza Zakani has at least 12 tough questions for Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif when he reports on Sunday to present the principles of the framework nuclear agreement.

    Zakani, an expert on nuclear medicine and a professor at Tehran University, publicized his questions on Mehr (Iran’s version of YouTube). Among other things, he wants to know all the details regarding the precise interpretation of the cessation of work at the Fordo site; what will be implemented in Natanz; and, mainly, what “red lines” the Iranian negotiating team violated in order to reach an agreement.

    Zakani belongs to the conservative wing and a few months ago declared, “After Yemen, it will be Saudi Arabia’s turn.” However, he is not the only one who has been systematically criticizing the negotiations and the agreement reached by Iran and the six world powers last Thursday.

    Hussain Naqvi al-Hussaini, the speaker of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee in the Iranian parliament, demanded “to reexamine the Lausanne declaration, since the Iranian people will not recognize any agreement that doesn’t include a complete lifting of all the sanctions.”

    Another committee member, Mohammad Ismail Kothari, was angry that “the United States achieved all its objectives, while Iran did not succeed in achieving the basic objective of lifting the sanctions.”

    These words of criticism, which are very similar to what is being said by the Israeli government or Republican members of Congress, are, for the time being, slipping on the fortified wall of support granted by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to the agreement and negotiating team.

    The spontaneous public joy that greeted the negotiating team on its return from Lausanne, and treated Zarif like a conquering hero returning from the battlefield, also makes it clear to opponents of the agreement that their efforts to prevent it are liable to encounter an undesirable reaction in the street.

    In fact, the problem does not lie in selling the Lausanne declaration to the general public, but in convincing the radical elites and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard – who oppose the future agreement for ideological and political reasons.