Iran's Rouhani says nuclear deal to benefit all parties

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 regional 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," Rouhani said in a ceremony to inaugurate 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 United States started their second day of talks in Switzerland on Tuesday to smooth out 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 IRIB TV.

The 12th phase of Iran's South Pars gas field, inaugurated on Tuesday, has a daily production capacity of 80 million cubic meters of gas and 120,000 barrels of gas condensates, bringing to the country 17.5 million U.S. dollars in revenues every day. It costs some 7.5 billion U.S. dollars, Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh was quoted by Tasnim news agency as saying.

The project covers approximately 205 square kilometers 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 meters of natural gas. Endit