Iran is taking a cautious approach to Saturday’s agreement between the U.S. and Russia to reduce the Syrian government’s stockpile of chemical weapons, offering a small sign that its leaders may see an opportunity for a diplomatic breakthrough with Washington in the near future.
Kamran Jebreili/AP - Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani, center, arrives at Masoumeh shrine to casts his ballot for the parliamentary elections March 2, 2012.
Twenty-four hours after the deal was announced, neither Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani, nor his foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, had commented on the arrangement, which greatly diminished the likelihood of a U.S. lead attack in response to the alleged Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack in Syria.
Ali Larijani, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, is the highest ranking official to offer a reaction thus far.
On Saturday, he told a gathering of reporters in Tehran that he was hopeful that “logic would prevail and extremist movements on the international scene will not intensify. Of course what we have seen these past days shows a little bit of logic.”
Mohsen Rezaei, a two time presidential candidate and former head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, was more skeptical.
“This is a military tactic,” Rezaie said. “Usually when they decide to attack a country, they take its most dangerous weapons first and then strike. What the U.S. is doing could be a political game. I hope the U.S. does not have such an intention and that they try to resolve the problem in a peaceful way.”
With the United Nations General Assembly in New York beginning in less than two weeks, Iran is likely trying to reduce tension between Washington and Tehran, as speculation mounts that high-ranking officials from the two countries may hold talks for the first time in decades.
The two countries have not had diplomatic relations since 1979, when Iranian students invaded the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held 54 Americans hostage for 444 days.
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