A nuclear Iran - II

This refers to a letter "A nuclear Iran" carried by the newspaper recently. Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was reported to have said that he would rather see no deal reached with major powers on his country's nuclear programme than one that undercut national interests. These comments that he made as US Secretary of State John Kerry met Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif for a second time on the sidelines of a security conference in Germany to ratchet up efforts for a lasting nuclear accord sent a strong message across. That Iran has survived US/Western sanctions in a dignified manner is a fact that led to a nuclear deal between West and Iran a few weeks ago. Khamenei was really on the ball when he said that he agreed with a deal that can take pace but he did not agree with what he described "a bad deal". No doubt, Rouhani-led government has not cut a bad deal at all; it has rather demonstrated an example of steadfastness and consistency on the issue. This success of Tehran, however, will lack legitimacy if the Islamic fails to alleviate deep concerns of the Arab states, particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE.