Iran faces excessive demands in N-deal: Cleric

DUBAI/BEIRUT: A senior cleric challenged Iran’s historic nuclear deal with world powers on Friday, echoing a cautious early assessment of the accord by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, an arch-conservative who has the last word on matters of state.

Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Movahedi Kermani did not dismiss the accord in his remarks at Friday prayers in Tehran, but his language was sufficiently tough — some terms of the deal were an “insult” and “excessive”, he said — to indicate significant unease about the accord within Iran’s clerical establishment.

His remarks will be seen by Iranians as reflecting Khamenei’s views and contrast with the praise given to the accord by President Hassan Rouhani and foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who plan to use the deal as the basis for a charm offensive among Iran’s wary Arab neighbours.

Kermani said Iran would accept a deal only if sanctions were lifted immediately, frozen revenues were returned and Tehran’s revolutionary ideals, including its fight with “global arrogance” — a term for the West and Israel — were preserved.

“They have some excessive demands,” he said, objecting to restrictions placed on the number of centrifuges Iran can operate, on its nuclear research and development and on its handling of enriched uranium.