MOSCOW, December 6. /TASS/. Tehran is ready for resultative talks on the restoration of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on the Iranian nuclear program in Vienna, Iranian Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in an interview with Russia’s Kommersant daily.
"Despite the fact that the West is not implementing its commitments, Iran, for the sake of demonstrating its good will and with an eye of the lifting of the unilateral and illegal sanctions, is again ready for resultative 4+1 talks (Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany - TASS) to reach a good agreement. Iran has good will and is set for successful talks," he said.
According to the Iranian top diplomat, the situation around the Iran nuclear deal emerged because Washington "has been sparing no effort to break down the JCPOA" for the recent four years. "Iran, on the contrary, has been doing its utmost to keep this agreement alive," he stressed.
"It became clear for Iran during the previous six rounds: the United States is still failing to see that there is no ways for it to be back in the JCPOA without lifting all sanctions imposed against the Iranian people after Washington’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal," said Amir-Abdollahian. He recalled that United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231 binds all the signatory nations to support the JCPOA and "refrain from actions that could be harmful to it."
The JCPOA, also known as the Iran nuclear deal, was signed between Iran, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (Russia, the United Kingdom, China, the United States and France) and Germany in 2015. Under the deal, Iran undertook to curb its nuclear activities and place them under the total control of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in exchange for the abandonment of the sanctions imposed previously by the United Nations Security Council, the European Union and the United States over its nuclear program.
The future of the deal was called into question after the United States’ unilateral withdrawal in May 2018 and Washington’s unilateral oil export sanctions against Teheran. Iran argued that all the other participants, Europeans in the first place, were ignoring some of their own obligations in the economic sphere, thus making the deal in its current shape senseless. This said, it began to gradually scale down its commitments under the deal.
Meanwhile, US’ incumbent President Joe Biden has repeatedly signaled his readiness to return the US to the deal.
The JCPOA Joint Commission has had six offline meetings in Vienna since April to find ways to restore the nuclear deal in its original form. The sides discuss prospects for the United States’ possible return to the deal, steps needed to ensure full compliance with the deal’s terms by Iran, and issues of lifting the anti-Iranian sanctions. The sides took a break in late June but the resumption of talks was delayed due to the presidential election in Iran and the formation of a new government in that country. The seventh round of talks kicked off in Vienna on November 29.