Seriously.
From Fars News Agency, Iran Strongly Rejects Text of Geneva Agreement Released by White House:
TEHRAN (FNA)- The Iranian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday called invalid a press release by the White House alleged to be the text of the nuclear agreement struck by Iran and the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany) in Geneva on Sunday.“What has been released by the website of the White House as a fact sheet is a one-sided interpretation of the agreed text in Geneva and some of the explanations and words in the sheet contradict the text of the Joint Plan of Action (the title of the Iran-powers deal), and this fact sheet has unfortunately been translated and released in the name of the Geneva agreement by certain media, which is not true,” Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham said on Tuesday.She said that the four-page text under the name of the Joint Plan of Action (which has been released by the Iranian foreign ministry) was the result of the agreement reached during the Geneva talks and all of its sentences and words were chosen based on the considerations of all parties to the talks. In fact one of the reasons why negotiations between Iran and the G5+1 took so long pertained to the accuracy which was needed for choosing the words for the text of the agreement, Afkham said, explaining that the Iranian delegation was much rigid and laid much emphasis on the need for this accuracy….
According to Iran Pulse at AL-Monitor, the disagreement relates to whether the agreement recognizes Iran’s “right” to enrich uranium:
Marzieh Afkham, spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, has disputed what was published on the White House website outlining the specifics of the nuclear deal between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (P5+1)….Afkham did not go into the specifics of what aspects of the document were inconsistent with Iran’s understanding of the agreement. In the Iranian media, there seems to be confusion over Iran’s right to enrichment. Iran’s foreign minister and top nuclear negotiator Mohammad Javad Zarif said that Iran’s right to enrich had been officially recognized. However, US Secretary of State John Kerry told ABC’s “This Week,” that “We do not recognized the right to enrich,” and British Foreign Secretary William Hague told the BBC that the phrase “right to enrich” is “not in the document.”
From the Iranian statement it’s hard to tell exactly what the problem is, and whether one side has sold the agreement to its respective public as something it is not.
I suspect we’ll be hearing more about this in the coming hours.
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