Dragged Out Break in Vienna Talks Unfavorable: Iranian Spokesman
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The Iranian foreign minister and the EU foreign policy chief agree about the necessity to arrange a face-to-face meeting as the prolongation of a hiatus in the Vienna negotiations on the revival of the JCPOA is not to the benefit of the talks, an Iranian spokesman said.
Speaking at a presser on Monday about the latest developments in the Vienna talks on saving the 2015 nuclear deal, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh said what relates to Iran, the European Union, Russia and China has already been concluded.
“The coordinator of the JCPOA negotiations is pushing ahead with what remains to be resolved between Iran and the United States,” he added.
The spokesman said that Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell “share a view that the prolongation of the break (in the Vienna talks) would not be to the benefit of the negotiations” and that a face-to-face meeting needs to be held immediately.
“No decision has been made so far as to where and at what level the meeting should be held, but it is on the agenda,” Khatibzadeh added.
“What matters is that the negotiations have not come to a halt and are being pursued by the coordinator of the Vienna talks,” the spokesman noted.
The Vienna talks, meant to resurrect the JCPOA, were paused in March for an undetermined period of time despite reports suggesting that they were in the “final stages.”
The United States, which is blamed for the current stalemate, is reluctant to take confidence-building measures due to its erroneous bias, procrastination in decision-making and excessive demands.
Iranian officials have repeatedly said the US needs to remove all illegal sanctions against the Islamic Republic in a verifiable manner and offer guarantees that a new US administration will not breach the JCPOA again before it can rejoin the deal.
Former US president Donald Trump unilaterally 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.