DUBAI/GENEVA - President Hassan Rouhani, architect of Iran's diplomatic opening to big powers, said on Sunday it would not yield to any threats or discrimination in an apparent bid to keep hardliners on side as Tehran edges toward a deal on its nuclear program.
He was speaking to the Iranian parliament, a bastion of conservatives, a day after the Islamic Republic and the six powers narrowed differences at talks in Geneva and decided to resume them on Nov. 20 to try to defuse a decade-old stand-off and fears of a drift towards a new Middle East war.
The sides seemed on the verge of a breakthrough before cracks materialized among U.S. and European allies as France declined to endorse the proposal under discussion, believing it did not adequately neutralize the risk of an Iranian atom bomb.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told France Inter radio that Paris desired a nuclear settlement with Iran but could not accept a "fool's game" - in other words, a weak deal.
Diplomats said the main stumbling blocks included the status of Iran's Arak heavy-water reactor of potential use in making bomb-grade plutonium, the fate of Iran's stockpile of higher-enriched uranium - both acute issues for France - and the extent of relief from trade sanctions demanded by Tehran.
Israel, which calls Iran's nuclear activity a mortal threat, denounced the interim deal taking shape in Geneva as it would have let Iran retain some enrichment capacity rather than dismantle it, while giving Tehran respite from sanctions.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu served notice that Israel would not feel bound by such a deal, unmistakably reiterating a veiled threat to take military action if it deems diplomacy to restrain Iran's nuclear ambitions a dead end.
Rouhani told the Iranian parliament that his negotiators had told their big power interlocutors in Geneva, "We will not answer to any threat, sanction, humiliation or discrimination."
He did not elaborate on his reference to threats against Iran, but Netanyahu's condemnation of the talks loomed large, as did the ideological resistance of Iranian conservatives to any mending of fences with the West.
By "discrimination" and "humiliation", he may have been alluding to pressure from hawks in the West for Iran to scrap its entire nuclear program, which Tehran says is wholly peaceful in nature.
"The Islamic Republic has not and will not bow its head to threats from any authority," Rouhani said. "For us there are red lines that cannot be crossed. National interests are our red lines that include our rights under the framework of international regulations and [uranium] enrichment in Iran."
The fact that any deal might be feasible after a decade of increasingly vitriolic confrontation between Iran and Western powers, shows the striking shift in the tone of Iranian foreign policy since Rouhani's landslide election victory in June.
Rouhani, a relative moderate, opened diplomatic windows to a nuclear compromise to alleviate economic sanctions that have throttled the OPEC giant's lifeblood oil industry and cut it off from the international banking system.
He has won crucial public backing from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's ultimate authority, who - despite his profound suspicion of Washington - has warned hardline loyalists not to challenge the negotiating path.
Rouhani has repeated Iran's longtime insistence on a right to a sovereign nuclear energy industry as a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Most diplomats concede that, as Tehran has expanded its nuclear capacity exponentially since 2006, the time for demanding a total shutdown - although enshrined in several U.N. Security Council resolutions - has now passed.
The Islamic Republic says its nuclear activities are purely peaceful and its negotiators say they are ready to take steps necessary for a deal if their nuclear "rights are recognized" and world powers reciprocate by relaxing sanctions.
Fabius's sharp remarks rankled with others in the Western camp. But U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry played down suggestions of a rift as the talks ended late on Saturday, saying, "I think tonight there is a unity in our position and a unity in the purpose as we leave here."
European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said senior political officials from Iran and the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany would meet again on Nov. 20 to work on a deal. Kerry told reporters that an agreement could be within reach.