Iran Insists Removal Of Sanctions Is Red Line In Vienna Talks
Iran will by no means compromise its principles on the necessity for the termination of sanctions and for benefiting from the 2015 nuclear deal in the course of Vienna negotiations on the revival of the agreement, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh said.
In comments at a press conference on Monday, Khatibzadeh said the Iranian team of negotiators will head to Vienna tomorrow to proceed with the JCPOA talks after holding the necessary consultations in Tehran.
Describing the removal of sanctions and Iran’s right to enjoy the advantages of the JCPOA as Tehran’s red line in the talks, the spokesman said Washington is expected to have made the requisite decisions.
The US is expected to resume honoring its JCPOA commitments with a clear agenda, he stated, adding, “There is no conceivable breakthrough except political decision in Washington.”
The spokesman also underlined that the people of Iran will never pay the cost of the American officials’ “destructive decisions” to withdraw from the JCPOA and violate the UN Security Council Resolution 2231.
Stressing the need for the US to change its behavior and for the European parties to the JCPOA to stop inaction on the US’ unilateral and illegal sanctions against Iran, Khatibzadeh said they must prove that they are reliable actors in the international system.
Iran and the remaining participants to the JCPOA have been holding talks in Vienna since April last year with the aim of reviving the deal by bringing the US into full compliance.
The US left the JCPOA in May 2018 under former president Donald Trump. The Vienna talks began on a promise by Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, to rejoin the deal and repeal the so-called maximum pressure campaign against Iran. Biden, however, has so far failed to undo Trump’s own undoing of Barack Obama’s Iran policy, which led to the JCPOA in June 2015.
The eighth round of the Vienna talks began on December 27 with a focus on the removal of all sanctions that the United States had imposed on Iran after its unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA. The US is not allowed to directly attend the talks due to its pullout in 2018 from the deal with Iran.
