Alghadeer TV Alghadeer TV
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian says Americans announce they are “in hurry” for returning to the 2015 nuclear deal in their ongoing messages to Tehran but “hypocritically” tell the press that rejoining the deal is not their priority.
According to Press TV, speaking to reporters on Wednesday on the sidelines of a cabinet session in Tehran, Amir-Abdollahian pointed to the latest developments with regard to the talks on the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Messages with the American side are constantly being exchanged, he said, adding that the last message was conveyed in the past 72 hours.
“Americans are sending messages through some foreign ministers that they are in hurry for [returning to] the JCPOA, but when the US Special Envoy for Iran, Robert Malley speaks to media, he hypocritically says the JCPOA ‘is not our focus right now’ and points to provocations that they seek to have about riots … in Iran,” said the minister.
Americans are pursuing a “completely clear” objective and that is to “exert pressure on us so that we would cross our redlines,” Amir-Abdollahian added.
“What is important for us in the negotiations is the national interests of people,” he noted, adding, “We will not forsake it.”
“However, we will strongly continue our efforts for removal of sanctions through negotiations,” he maintained.
The current crisis over Iran’s nuclear program was created in May 2018, when former US President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the 2015 nuclear deal and imposed tough economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic under what he called the “maximum pressure” policy.
The talks to salvage the agreement kicked off in the Austrian capital of Vienna in April last year, months after Joe Biden succeeded Trump, with the intention of examining Washington’s seriousness in rejoining the deal and removing anti-Iran sanctions.
The JCPOA revival talks have been at a stalemate since September, as Washington continued to insist on its position of not removing all the sanctions that were imposed on the Islamic Republic under the maximum pressure policy.
Amir-Abdollahian noted that Iran will use the opportunity to revive the 2015 deal if other parties “return to their commitments” and “the JCPOA works well for us.”
Iran has demanded that the United States provide assurances that it would not leave the JCPOA again before it could reenter the agreement. Washington has refused to give a legally enforceable guarantee, leaving Iranian negotiators suspicious of the Biden administration’s seriousness in the talks.
“We did not hold talks for the sake of talks but for results,” Amir-Abdollahian stressed, also advising Malley and other US officials to “end hypocrisy.”
