In his remarks, Mr. Khamanei also strongly criticized Iran’s regional competitor, Saudi Arabia — calling its new leaders “inexperienced youngsters” — a sign of rising regional tensions that could pose another threat to the negotiations, even as diplomats strive to keep the issues on separate tracks.
Ayatollah Khamenei was speaking about the nuclear talks for the first time since the framework agreement was struck in Lausanne, Switzerland. He said he saw no need to make a clear pronouncement on the agreement, because no signed agreement yet existed.
“There was no need to take a position,” he said. “The officials are saying that nothing has been done yet and nothing is obligatory. I neither agree nor disagree.”
But he emphasized his longstanding position about the sanctions, saying that they “should be lifted all together on the same day of the agreement, not six months or one year later.”
“If lifting of sanctions is supposed to be connected to a process, then why do we negotiate?”
The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, who spoke at a different event on Thursday, echoed the supreme leader’s remarks but with a potentially crucial difference, saying the sanctions have to be lifted on the day a deal is put in place, potentially months after a signed agreement.
“We will not sign any agreement, unless all economic sanctions are totally lifted on the first day of the implementation of the deal,” Mr. Rouhani said during a ceremony for Iran’s nuclear technology day, which celebrates the country’s nuclear achievements.
When we are old and grey, what will we look back on and wish we did differently? What memories will we cherish, what choices will we regret?
