Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian says ‘negotiations train has reached difficult stops’ as talks near end, in presser with visiting Russian counterpart
Iran said Thursday that it remains “serious” about reaching a revived nuclear deal with major powers that ends economic sanctions and to which the United States is again a party.
Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was speaking at a joint news conference with visiting Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov as talks between the parties in Vienna remain stalled.
“The nuclear negotiations train has reached difficult stops as they near the end,” Amir-Abdollahian said.
He stressed Iran was “serious about reaching a good, strong and lasting agreement” and called for similar realism from the US side.
“I hope we can reach the final point of the agreement in the near future with realism from the American side,” he said.
Russia was a party to the original 2015 deal — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA — that gave Iran relief from international sanctions in return for UN-monitored limits to its nuclear activities.
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It has taken part in the on-again-off-again talks that opened in Vienna in April last year on bringing Washington back into the agreement after former US president Donald Trump’s 2018 withdrawal.
“Today, with the other participants in the JCPOA… we are making every effort to repair the American error when the United States left the JCPOA,” Lavrov told the news conference.
Both Iran and Russia have been grappling with the economic impact of Western actions. Moscow has faced mounting sanctions since its invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February.
“We oppose illegal sanctions against countries including Russia,” Amir-Abdollahian said.
According to a report, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on Monday urged the United States to be “realistic” to help reach an agreement in Vienna talks aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
The Iranian diplomat said in a tweet that “the excessive demands” of the United States could lead to a pause in the Vienna negotiation as Iran will “never give in” to such demands.
Amir-Abdollahian also pointed out that “an agreement can be reached if the United States is realistic.”
Earlier in the day, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said that the United States should be responsible for protraction in Vienna talks.
Iran signed the JCPOA with the world powers in July 2015. However, former U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the agreement in May 2018 and reimposed unilateral sanctions on Tehran, prompting the Islamic republic to scale back some of its nuclear commitments under the agreement in retaliation.
Since April 2021, eight rounds of talks have been held in Vienna between Iran and the remaining JCPOA parties, namely China, Russia, Britain, France, and Germany, to revive the deal.
Over the past weeks, reports from Vienna suggested that the negotiators were “close” to an agreement with few key issues remaining which required “political decisions” of the parties.
