TEHRAN (Dispatches) – Tehran said Monday nothing new has happened with regard to the 2015 nuclear agreement reached with six world powers, which was later ditched by former U.S. President Donald Trump.
"We haven’t seen any new development regarding the JCPOA,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said at a press conference, using the official name of the nuclear deal.
He said Iran has made it clear that the U.S. should first lift the sanctions, which were imposed under Trump, and honor the JCPOA, before the Islamic Republic returns to full compliance with the accord.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action came under vicious attacks during the four years Trump was in office, but it survived nevertheless. After pulling out in May 2018, Trump intensified his efforts to kill the deal, which was signed under his predecessor Barack Obama.
Iran, for its part, waited patiently for the other signatories – namely the UK, France, Germany, China and Russia – to protect its interests as promised under the deal. However, as they failed to protect it against Washington’s "maximum pressure” policy and compensate it, Tehran announced a gradual reduction of its commitments under the deal exactly one year after the U.S. withdrawal.
In his Monday presser, Khatibzadeh underlined that as long as sanctions are in place, nothing will happen on Iran’s side.
"Naturally, as stated before, Iran’s reduction of compliance is reversible if the other side honors its obligations and the conditions are restored to the pre-JCPOA withdrawal era,” he said. "We’ve heard a lot of talk, but now it is time to act.”
The spokesman emphasized that a return to the JCPOA should be done "responsibly.”
"That a government whimsically decides to exit an agreement endorsed by a UN Security Council resolution and then decides to re-enter it is not feasible,” he said, noting that Iran’s stance, unlike that of the United States, is based on legal grounds.
He further said the U.S. cannot do whatever it wants and then return to the previous conditions, suggesting that the U.S. should make up for the damage inflicted upon Iran by its illegal withdrawal from the JCPOA and its subsequent sanctions.
Asked to comment on the Iranian Parliament’s recent push for accelerating the development of the country’s nuclear program, Khatibzadeh said if the European parties to the deal do not honor their commitments under UN Security Council Resolution 2231, Iran should naturally stop the International Atomic Energy Agency’s safeguards inspections and implementation of the Additional Protocol.
He warned the European parties to the deal that this is their "last chance to return to honoring their commitments and salvage the JCPOA.”
"The Americans should also know that we will implement the Parliament’s law word by word,” the spokesman added.
Early last month, Iranian lawmakers overwhelmingly voted in favor of the Strategic Action Plan to Counter Sanctions, which tasked the Iranian administration with suspending more commitments under the JCPOA.
The law, among other things, required the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) to produce at least 120 kg of 20-percent enriched uranium annually and start the installation, gas injection, enrichment and storage of nuclear materials up to an appropriate enrichment degree within a period of three months using at least 1,000 IR-2m centrifuges.
A month later, Tehran announced the beginning of the process to enrich uranium to 20 percent purity at its Fordow nuclear facility in a tit-for-tat move against the US withdrawal and the European countries’ failure to protect Iran’s interests.
"Whenever the other side rectifies its steps, we will reverse our
 measures as well, including the 20 percent enrichment,” Khatibzadeh said.
He also stated that although a few days have passed since Biden’s inauguration, "we haven’t seen any measure from the European side.”
In reference to the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX), a financial mechanism proposed by Europeans to circumvent US sanctions, Khatibzadeh suggested that the mechanism has failed to meet its purpose.
"INSTEX was created to neutralize unilateral, extraterritorial and illegal U.S. sanctions, not to conduct limited exchanges in some areas under the sanctions,” he said.
Reacting to recent remarks by German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who blamed Iran for INSTEX’s failure to be effective, Khatibzadeh said the remarks were intended to divert attention from the Europeans’ failure to fulfill their obligations.
"Some of the parties in the JCPOA think that history can be erased with their remarks or that Iran will forget their commitments,” he said.
Khatibzadeh’s remarks came after a Kuwaiti newspaper claimed that Iranian diplomats have been in touch with members of Biden’s administration about restarting talks on Iran’s nuclear program and had laid out seven preconditions.
Kuwait’s Al-Jarida newspaper, which is known for making controversial allegations about Iran often quashed by Tehran, claimed that contacts had begun before Biden took office.
The paper claimed an unnamed source in Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s office had divulged the news to the publication, indicating that the contacts were ongoing but informal.
According to the Kuwaiti report, Majid Takht Ravanchi, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, was summoned to Tehran to discuss the contacts with the new administration, and then returned to New York with a list of seven Iranian conditions for returning to talks on the nuclear program.
The first condition, the paper said, was that Iran would not accept a partial lifting of sanctions because Tehran considers the JCPOA an indivisible agreement. The report said that Iran would demand that the U.S. implement all aspects of the deal, including the full lifting of sanctions, if it wanted to re-enter the accords.
Secondly, any disagreements over the accords must be discussed within the framework of the official negotiating committees. One of these anticipated disagreements is Tehran’s demand for compensation for financial losses it incurred due to the Trump administration’s exit from the deal, notably the financial impact of the sanctions, the paper said.
The third condition was said to be that Tehran will not accept linkage between the nuclear deal and other issues, including its missile program and activities throughout the Middle East.
The fourth demand was reportedly that Iran will not accept any new members into the deal beyond the P5+1, including any Persian Gulf Arab states.
Fifthly, any issues involving other regional states must be discussed separately, and not as part of the nuclear talks.
The sixth point was said to be that while Iran will not discuss its missile program, it is open to talking about regional arms control under the supervision of the United Nations and is especially concerned about Israeli missiles and nuclear weapons.
Finally, Iran will not accept a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, and insists on a UN referendum of Palestinians and Jews on "land.”  
According to the report, Ravanchi will communicate these c