DUBAI, July 18. /TASS/. Iran will take part in a new round of negotiations with the United States only if Washington expresses its readiness to conclude a fair deal on Tehran's nuclear program that considers the interests of both sides, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Friday.
"It was the US that withdrew from a two-year negotiated deal - coordinated by the EU in 2015 - not Iran; and it was the US that left the negotiation table in June this year and chose a military option instead, not Iran," Iran’s top diplomat wrote on his X social network account.
"Any new round of talks is only possible when the other side is ready for a fair, balanced, and mutually beneficial nuclear deal," Araghchi stressed.
The Iranian foreign minister’s statement comes following talks with his counterparts from the countries of the European Trio, Great Britain, Germany, and France, or the so-called E3, via an online video conference that was also attended by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas.
"If the EU/E3 want to have a role, they should act responsibly and abandon the worn-out policies of threat and pressure, including the ‘snap-back’ for which they have absolutely no moral or legal basis," Araghchi added.
The snapback mechanism provided under the JCPOA (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) on Iran’s nuclear program allows for the return of all UN Security Council sanctions against Tehran that were suspended under the 2015 JCPOA.
Iran nuclear deal
The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known as the Iran nuclear deal, with Iran in 2015, putting an end to a long-running standoff over Iran’s alleged development of nuclear weapons.
However, during his first presidential term, US President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and reinstated all anti-Iranian sanctions that had previously been lifted under the JCPOA.
In response, Iran announced in 2020 that it would scale back its commitments under the deal and restrict access for International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors. Despite five rounds of nuclear negotiations between Iran and the United States in 2025, no progress was made, largely due to Israel’s military operation against Iran and US airstrikes targeting Iranian nuclear facilities.
Concurrently, the E3 nations, namely the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, also engaged in talks with Tehran but failed to broker a new nuclear agreement.