Iran Not to Back Down from Red Lines in Sanctions Removal Talks: FM
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said the country will not abandon the path of diplomacy and negotiation but it is not going to back down from its red lines in the talks aimed at reviving the JCPOA either.
“While maintaining the country's national interests, we keep making efforts to finalize the talks that we have been engaged in for months,” Amirabdollahian said at a ceremony held Tuesday here in Tehran to commemorate late Iranian diplomat Hossein Sheikholeslam.
Amirabdollahian added that reaching an agreement in line with Iran's national interests is one of the inherent duties that the Foreign Ministry pursues, the Foreign Ministry’s website reported.
The Iranian foreign minister said Iran has explicitly told the US and other Western sides that Tehran is serious about respecting its red lines, achieving its national interests and reaching a deal that all sides prove their commitment thereto.
He said, “We will never walk away from the negotiating table while at the same time, we have proven that under the most difficult circumstances and even during the riots which foreign sides tried to fuel, we did not retreat from our red lines. And today, diplomacy and negotiation are before us and we will by no means neglect this inherent duty of ours.”
The talks on reviving the 2015 deal kicked off in the Austrian capital city of Vienna in April 2021, with the intention of removing anti-Iran sanctions and examining the US’s seriousness in rejoining the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
The discussions, however, have been at a standstill since August 2022 due to Washington’s insistence on its hard-nosed position of not removing all the sanctions that were slapped on Tehran by the previous US administration.
