Editors Note: The following text is a summary of news items in the state-run media showing how the Iranian government is portraying the talks held in Geneva on October 1 to the Iranian public. The government’s main objective is to give the impression that Iran had the upper hand in the talks with the 5 +1, which was not the case.

Kayhan/ Raja News
Arash Aramesh

In a meeting with members of Iran’s parliament, Saeed Jalili, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, presented his report of his recent meeting with the representative of 5+1 in Geneva. After the meeting, the Chairman of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Kazem Jalali, said: “All political groups in Iran have reached a consensus on Iran’s nuclear program. This is a national issue and no one can just cut a deal.” Jalili said that while in Geneva, William Burns, the U.S. government representative in the meeting, asked him several times for private meetings between Iran and the US. But Mr. Jalili turned him down and insisted on talks between Iran and the 5+1.

Meanwhile, Raja News, a radical news site close to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, quoted the Iranian president as saying, “We were asked to participate in the Geneva talks to help solve the world’s problems.” Mr. Ahmadinejad and his allies are trying to play down the nuclear negotiations and portray the talks in Geneva as a seven-party meeting to solve the world’s problems.

In another editorial, Hossein Shariatmadari, the managing editor of Kayhan and a close confidant of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, wrote, “Representatives of the six countries raised the same issue: ‘What is Iran going to do for the freeze-for-freeze offer?’ When they were through asking their questions, Jalili, with a meaningful smile on his face, said, ‘All you gentlemen are amateurs so I cannot blame you for not knowing the history of our negotiations. The Islamic Republic has repeatedly said on numerous occasions that it will not suspend uranium enrichment.”’ According to Kayhan, Jalili turns to Javier Solana, the European Union foreign policy chief, and asks, “Did you not tell them that we are here to discuss Iran’s proposed package?”

Other official and semi-official news agencies in Iran such as IRNA, Fars, and Mehr repeated the same claims that Iran left Geneva in a stronger position, and Western powers agreed to Iran’s terms and conditions.