'N-deal to benefit all parties'

Tehran, March 17: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday that a possible nuclear deal will be in the interest of all countries, including the Islamic republic and the regiol states. “We announce this to all the parties involved that Iran was not drawn to the negotiating table by sanctions, and that if the talks come to fruition, they will benefit Iran and the whole region,” Xinhua news agency quoted Rouhani as saying in a ceremony to iugurate a gas project in the southern Bushehr province.

“We announce to the world that the era of pressures via sanctions is over,” Rouhani said as the representatives from Iran and the US resumed talks in Switzerland on Tuesday to rrow the gap over the country’s disputed nuclear issue. Iran has implemented many of its projects, including those in the energy sector, under sanction pressures, which proves that “if Iran decides to do something, no power could stop it”, he said according to state-run IRIB TV.

The 12th phase of Iran’s South Pars gas field, iugurated on Tuesday, has a daily production capacity of 80 million cubic metres of gas and 120,000 barrels of gas condensates, bringing to the country $17.5 million in revenues every day. The project covers approximately 205 sq km along the Iran-Qatar border in the Persian Gulf and contains about five percent of the whole gas reserves in the South Pars gas field, according to the report. Iran, one of the world’s top gas reserve holders, sits on more than 33 trillion cubic metres of tural gas. (IANS)