Iran’s senior nuclear negotiator said that Iran’s commitments under the nuclear deal will not be permanent. PHOTO: Wikipedia.

Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister and senior nuclear negotiator, said on Tuesday that Iran did not see the comprehensive nuclear dear negotiators are trying to finalize by the end of this month as permanent.

According to Iranian state-run Press TV, Aragchi rejected U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken’s remarks on the deal as false, and said that any agreement, if reached at all, would have a specific time-frame, at the end of which the deal would expire.

“If any final agreement is struck, it will last for a specified period of time and none of the measures envisaged in it will be permanent,” Fars News reported Aragchi saying.

Blinken made his comments on Monday to an audience at the American Jewish Committee’s annual Global Forum in Washington, attempting to allay fears regarding the deal, particularly the expiration or “sunset clause” for nuclear oversight.

Blinken said, “the deal will not expire and there will not be a so-called sunset.” He explained that, “Different requirements of the deal would have different durations … but some – including Iran’s commitment to all of the obligations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, including the obligation not to build a nuclear weapon, as well as the tough access and monitoring provisions of the Additional Protocol – those would continue in perpetuity.”

Blinken also claimed that the U.S. would not accept a deal that does not allow international inspectors to have access to Iran’s military and nuclear sites.  Iran, on the other hand, has repeatedly refused to allow nuclear inspectors unfettered access as part of the nuclear deal.

Araghchi commented that while Iran would maintain its commitment to the NPT as long as it remains a signatory to the treaty, Blinken’s comments were factually baseless and meant to allay domestic fears over the deal. He said “the American side’s resorting to such commitments to appease their domestic affairs or allies is just a worthless fallacy,” Mehr News reported.