BEIRUT // All United Nations Security Council resolutions related to Iran’s nuclear programme will be lifted immediately if a final deal is agreed, foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said, stressing the benefits to his country of last week’s negotiations.
After leading Iranian negotiators to a preliminary deal with world powers in Switzerland, Mr Zarif must now convince a domestic audience that the talks are heading toward a final deal that is in Iran’s interest.
He disputed a “fact sheet” released by the United States shortly after the deal that emphasised Iranian concessions and referred to sanctions being suspended rather than lifted – and only after confirmation that Tehran had complied with the terms of the agreement.
“The Americans put what they wanted in the fact sheet ... I even protested this issue with [US secretary of state John) Kerry himself,” Mr Zarif said in a television interview cited by the Fars news agency, adding that UN Security Council would oversee any deal.
“Either side in this agreement can, in the case of the other side violating the agreement, cease its own steps,” Mr Zarif said. He mirrored earlier comments by the US president Barack Obama that sanctions could be reapplied if Iran did not stick to its word.
“Whatever work we have on the nuclear programme can be restored ... Our knowledge is local and no one can take that away from us,” Mr Zarif said.
Iran’s lead negotiator, who was welcomed back to Tehran by cheering crowds on Friday, insisted that Iran had negotiated from a position of strength to secure a good preliminary deal.
He pointed to the changes in the demands of the P5+1 group of countries – the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China – as evidence of the success of negotiations that began two years ago.
“They realised they can’t shut down Iran’s nuclear programme.”
Mr Zarif said Iran would keep its promises so long as the West also did so, and suggested a deal could open the door to more productive relations with the international community, echoing comments on Friday by the tresident, Hassan Rouhani.
“We don’t want anything more than our rights,” he said. “We’ve never pursued a bomb in the past or now. We’re also not looking for regional hegemony. We want good relations with our neighbours in the region.”
US officials have insisted that a detailed list of specific items agreed at the Lausanne talks, which the US side released on Thursday, was not open to further negotiation and would be part of the final overall agreement to be worked out by end-June.
A senior US official told reporters on Friday that Iran and the six nations had agreed they could release their own interpretations of the deal, but there were not to be any discrepancies about facts.
“We understood we would have different narratives, but we wouldn’t contradict each other,” the official said.
The US fact sheet described its contents as “the key parameters” of a final deal to be agreed by June 30. It said key details were subject to further negotiation, adding that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed”.
Separately, France has released its own fact sheet on the nuclear deal, which includes additional detail about the easing of limitations on Iran’s enrichment programme after 10 years. While it does not contradict the US fact sheet, it notes that Tehran would eventually be able to use advanced centrifuges.
The French fact sheet said Tehran would be allowed a “gradual and precisely defined increase in [enrichment] capacity between the tenth and thirteenth years with the introduction of advanced IR-2 and IR-4 centrifuges.”
Allowing Tehran to eventually use advanced centrifuges, which purify uranium several times more efficiently than the first generation IR-1 machines Iran currently uses, is likely to raise concerns in Israel and the Republican-dominated US congress.
Under the Lausanne agreement, Tehran would only use IR-1s for the first decade.
* Reuters
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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