by Our Foreign Desk

IRANIAN Foreign Minister Javad Zarif went into negotiations with global leaders in New York last night, confident that the elements of a draft of a comprehensive nuclear agreement could be brought together.

All sides are expected to take part in meetings in Europe starting on Monday to finalise all the ingredients of an accord.

Mr Zarif, who met US Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday, said at an event on Wednesday in New York that, even though Tehran certainly wants to meet the June 30 deadline for an agreement, “no time deadline is sacrosanct.”

The foreign minister said that his country expects United Nations sanctions to be lifted within a few days of a deal being reached and he expects President Barack Obama to stop implementing unilateral US sanctions.

“How he does so is his problem,” Mr Zarif added.

He poked fun at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been a bitter opponent of efforts to negotiate with Iran over its nuclear programme.

The Iranian minister called Mr Netanyahu’s accusations “ironic but laughable,” noting: “Netanyahu has become everyone’s non-proliferation guru.

He is sitting on 400 nuclear warheads.”Mr Zarif referred to a mechanism by which sanctions could be “snapped back” in the event of any violation of a final agreement, but he suggested that the world should be concerned about possible violations by the US rather than Iran.

“This is not a game. We have a provision for snap-back if the US fails, so if the US wants to sell this as an achievement, be my guest,” he said.