Iran says it wants a "good and quick deal" in nuclear talks
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabollahian said on Saturday that his government's priority is "dialogue and negotiation" and that "all the necessary arrangements have been made to reach a good and quick agreement" on the nuclear chapter, which will be discussed again next week in Vienna.
Vienna is scheduled to host next Monday the resumption of negotiations to reinstate the nuclear deal (JCPOA), in which, in addition to Iran, delegations from Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom and Germany will be present, while the United States will participate indirectly.
The talks were broken off in June after the election victory of the now ultra-conservative Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, who is demanding that Washington lift all sanctions against his country. In the deal, Iran committed to a series of significant limitations on its atomic activities in exchange for the lifting of all sanctions against it, but these were reinstated by the US in 2018 when it announced it was leaving the deal. Iran began a year later to renege on its obligations, such as enriched uranium production and significantly reduced access for IAEA inspectors.
"The hand of the Islamic Republic of Iran will not be closed, there are different options in front of us and we started with the option of dialogue and negotiation in Vienna," Amirabollahian said in remarks carried by the local Iranian news agency ISNA. "We have made all the necessary arrangements to reach a good and quick agreement," added the Persian foreign minister, who nevertheless made the agreement conditional on the other side's full compliance and the removal of sanctions imposed against the Persian country.
In 2018 the United States, under Donald Trump, withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal and imposed tough sanctions against Iran, which in response gradually began to renege on its obligations, particularly with regard to enriched uranium, a material with dual civilian and military uses. After the current US president, Joe Biden, came to power, new negotiations began in Vienna to save the 2015 nuclear deal.
"The rights of Iranians must be preserved in the upcoming talks in Vienna," Amirabollahian defended. "The explicit view of the Islamic Republic of Iran is that the rights and interests of the Iranian people must be secured at the negotiating table and sanctions must be lifted," the minister conveyed, expressing the hope that in Vienna all parties will take "fundamental and successful steps".