Iran slams US, E3 for distrust surrounding nuclear deal

Iran’s foreign minister says the United States is to blame for the current situation surrounding the Iran nuclear agreement, stressing that the European countries’ lack of commitment to the deal also added to the distrust caused by the US withdrawal.

“The US is the main culprit over the current situation,” Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a telephone conversation with his German counterpart Heiko Maas on Monday night.

“The US withdrawal and the three European countries’ reneging on their commitments have increasingly raised distrust,” he said. “Therefore, the complete lifting of sanctions is a necessity.”

Amir-Abdollahian urged the European signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal to refrain from issuing provocative statements, saying the Islamic Republic will not give in to threats that create a “false hype” around the Vienna talks aimed at removing Washington’s anti-Iran sanctions.

“The use of force and threats is not helpful in the course of negotiations, and the Islamic Republic of Iran will not succumb to such a false hype,” he asserted.

“Any inaccurate comments that are contrary to realities could jeopardize the ongoing efforts” meant to get the multilateral nuclear agreement, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), back on track, the chief Iranian diplomat said.

Envoys from Iran and the P4+1 group of countries — Britain, France, Russia, and China plus Germany — are expected to hold the seventh round of discussions in the Austrian capital on November 29.

The negotiations were paused in June, when Iran held a presidential election. Since then, the new Iranian administration has been reviewing the details of the six rounds of discussions held under the previous administration.

Maas, for his part, said Germany understands Iran’s distrust and that his country would work to return the US to the JCPOA and bring the Vienna talks to a conclusion.

He also pointed to German companies’ interest in working with Iran, expressing hope that such cooperation would be strengthened by resolving the current problems.

Former US President Donald Trump left the JCPOA in May 2018 and re-imposed the anti-Iran sanctions that the deal had lifted. He also placed additional sanctions on Iran under other pretexts not related to the nuclear case as part of his “maximum pressure” campaign.

Following a year of strategic patience, Iran resorted to its legal rights under the JCPOA, which grants a party the right to suspend its contractual commitments in case of non-compliance by other signatories, and let go of some of the restrictions imposed on its nuclear energy program.

The US administration of Joe Biden has said it is willing to compensate for Trump’s mistake and rejoin the deal, but it has shown an overriding propensity for maintaining some of the sanctions as a tool of pressure.

Tehran insists that all sanctions should first be removed in a verifiable manner before the Islamic Republic reverses its remedial measures.

Sanctions removal negotiations to resume in Vienna on Nov. 29: Chief negotiator

Iran

Iran after reaching ‘good agreement’: Amir-Abdollahian

On Tuesday, Amir-Abdollahian once again slammed Washington for creating the current problems, saying Iran is after reaching a “good agreement” on resurrecting the JCPOA, which would, in turn, remove the US’s sanctions on Iran.

He made the remarks in a phone conversation with his French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drian.

A good agreement, according to the Iranian foreign minister, has certain requirements, including a return by all sides to their commitments and the removal of the sanctions.

Elsewhere in his comments, Amir-Abdollahian called Iran’s defense program an inalienable right of the country, adding that regardless of the unconstructive, sanctions-oriented US behavior, “we will continue to increase our country’s defense power mightily.”

Tehran has time and again clarified its position on reviving the JCPOA, insisting that the US needs to guarantee that it will not abandon the deal again under another administration.

On Monday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh once again spelled out what the US must do to regain its JCPOA membership.

The US must agree to return from the path it took as the party to blame for the current situation, he told reporters at a press briefing.

Khatibzadeh explained that the US then needs to remove all the cruel and illegal sanctions it imposed on Iran after its unilateral withdrawal from the nuclear deal “in one go and in an effective way.”

Then the US has to guarantee that “no administration in the United States would belittle the world and international law” again by repeating the withdrawal from the JCPOA, he added.

Meanwhile, Biden’s promise to remove the anti-Iran sanctions, the extent of which remains unclear, has drawn a conservative backlash in the US, with several Republican senators saying Biden is not entitled to give assurances that a future administration will not reinstate the sanctions.

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