ABOARD AIRPLANE – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says the U.S. spinning with the framework nuclear deal is not “conducive” to a comprehensive nuclear accord.

“As it sounds right now the amount of spinning that is taking place in the U.S. is not conducive to reaching an agreement,” Zarif told the Tehran Times in an exclusive interview aboard the airplane on his way back to Iran from Pakistan late on Thursday.

Following is the text of the interview:

Q. Can a comprehensive and final nuclear pact with Iran have any impact on the next presidential election in the United States?

A: Certainly this would be a major achievement for the president in office who has been able to reach such a historic deal with Iran.

Unfortunately, the political climate in the U.S. is such that for any president to be able to move forward with that deal, it requires the foresight to go beyond the politics of constituencies and pressure tactics in order to be able to set that legacy. As it sounds right now the amount of spinning that is taking place in the U.S. is not conducive to reaching an agreement and the spinning is geared towards easing those constituencies inside the U.S. So it is a sort of a Catch 22 in the United States. People don’t know where they want to go. It requires courage to be able to make that leap in order to reach an agreement and the way it has been going over the past one week (since April 2), it leaves a lot to be desired. We will have to wait and see.

But if the president is capable of moving forward and holding on to a reasonable deal that is done, it’s not a deal that is one sided; it is a deal that represents the interest of Iran and at the same time addresses the issues that have been raised by the other side, in our view illegitimately, but nevertheless have been on the table. So it must be a balanced deal to go through and any balanced deal would have its critics on all sides. So we all have to wait and see. We have about 80 days to reach a comprehensive agreement and it is quite possible to do it provided that everybody is ready to move forward based on what we have agreed already.

Q: Have negotiators started to iron out details for a final pact?

A: We started working on the details a long time ago, as far back as in July in Vienna. But those were the general framework for the comprehensive agreement. Now we have to feed in all the specifics that we have been able to resolve on the enrichment, on Fordo, on Arak, on sanctions; all of those need to be written down and then negotiated. That is the most difficult part, where you get to negotiate things with fine print with the final outcome.

Q. Are you hopeful that a deal would go through?

A. I am always hopeful. If you don’t have hope you won’t be able to work. I am hopeful but cautious because we have compounded lack of confidence and mistrust. We believe that we have to be cautious because the United States doesn’t have a bright record of dealing with Iran based on facts. They have leveled out allegations against us; they have been less than forthcoming in fulfilling their commitments even in the first Geneva round, whereas everybody agrees that Iran has fulfilled fully its commitments under the first Geneva agreement, the preliminary agreement.

The IAEA and even the United States administration have said several times that Iran has fully complied with its obligations. That cannot be said about the United States. It has used every possibility in fact to continue with its sanctions policy because regrettably in spite of all the facts on the ground and in spite of the statements that have come from President Obama and Secretary Kerry, the sanctions have not been able to achieve their goals and will not be able to achieve their goals. They continue to consider sanctions as an asset. As long as they continue to believe that sanctions are an asset for them, they are not able to finalize a reasonable agreement. They need to realize that sanctions are in fact a liability and they must change that approach, and if they did then we will be close to a deal.