MUNICH — As consultations continued here on a possible new cease-fire arrangement with Russia and Ukraine, Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said on Sunday that Tehran does not favor another extension of the talks on limiting its nuclear program and expects economic sanctions to be quickly lifted if an accord is reached.
“Sanctions are a liability; you need to get rid of them if you want a solution,” Mr. Zarif told a security conference. “This is the opportunity to do it, and we need to seize this opportunity,” he said of the long effort to forge an agreement. “It may not be repeated.”
The nuclear talks have already been extended twice and face a late March deadline for hammering out the main outlines of an accord. The deadline for completing a detailed agreement is the end of June.
With a Republican-led Congress in Washington, an extension of the talks is virtually a political impossibility for the United States. And Secretary of State John Kerry, who met twice here with Mr. Zarif, including 90 minutes early Sunday morning, has been making an intensive effort to negotiate an accord.
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Iran has provided arms and sent paramilitary Quds force fighters to help President Bashar al-Assad of Syria in the battle against Syrian rebels and is a prime sponsor of Hezbollah in Lebanon and both Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank. Saudi Arabia and other Arab states that oppose Mr. Assad’s rule have insisted that Iran should not have a role in any regional talks on the Syria crisis.
The United States has also opposed giving Iran a role in the Syria negotiations unless its Syria policy changes.
In his speech on Sunday, Mr. McCain, the Arizona Republican, had some sharply critical words for Iran as well as for Russia. He asserted that Iran has helped Mr. Assad’s brutal crackdown in Syria, backed rebels in Yemen, supported militias in Iraq and trained militants from North Africa. He said that Iran represents “a geopolitical challenge,” not simply an arms-control problem, and called in general for an end to Western complacency in the face of challenges in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
