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News ID: 88990
Publish Date : 09 April 2021 - 22:08

Iran Outlines Plan to Verify Removal of Sanctions

VIENNA (Dispatches) -- Iran plans to verify whether the U.S. is actually lifting sanctions through oil exports and via international banking transactions, a member of Tehran’s negotiating team said in an interview published Friday.
The team has been holding talks in Vienna with representatives of the other parties to a 2015 nuclear accord on how to remove U.S. sanctions on Iran.
U.S. President Joe Biden has claimed he is ready to reverse the 2018 decision of his predecessor Donald Trump to withdraw from the agreement and reimpose unilateral sanctions, but his pledge has proved hollow in practice.
Tehran’s official position, announced Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, is to fall back in line with obligations it suspended only after verifying that "all sanctions” are "truly lifted”.
"Verification means that, for instance, the Islamic Republic must be able to sign its oil contracts and export it and bring in its revenues via banking channels or consider other uses for it,” said Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s ambassador to the UN’s nuclear agency and a delegation member.
"Or, in the banking sector, (Iran must) be able to conduct its financial transactions using different financial channels,” he said, quoted by Ayatollah Khamenei’s official website.
Gharibabadi stressed it was "the only way we can make sure that sanctions have been removed in action” and not only "on paper”.
Iran demands the removal of all U.S. sanctions, including those reimposed by Trump, "new sanctions” by the administration, and "sanctions imposed using non-nuclear excuses”, he said.
Trump blacklisted dozens of Iranian entities in addition to blocking Iran’s oil exports and virtually all banking ties -- sanctions that had been lifted in 2016 under the accord.
According to Gharibabadi, Iran is exploring options in the Vienna talks to prevent a potential repeat of what happened in 2018.
"It is being discussed what should be done regarding Iran’s technical commitments, and how they be carried out, in case a party reneges on their promise.”
 Iran’s deputy foreign minister for political affairs also said Tehran will not reverse the reduction of its nuclear compliance before the U.S. removes all its sanctions and returns to the landmark nuclear deal it abandoned under Trump.
Until the United States removes all of its sanctions and returns to the JCPOA, none of Iran’s nuclear activities, especially in the field of enrichment, will be halted or even reduced,” Abbas Araqchi said late Thursday, according to IRNA.
Back in May 2019, Iran began to scale down its nuclear compliance under Article 36 of the JCPOA, saying the move was a response to the U.S. withdrawal and the remaining parties’ failure to protect Iran from U.S. sanctions.
Under a law passed by the Iranian Parliament last December, the Iranian administration started to produce and store enriched uranium with a 20-percent purity level, breaking the 3.67-percent enrichment parameter set by the 2015 nuclear agreement.

However, Tehran has repeatedly said its measures will be reversed as soon as Washington removes its illegal sanctions.
"Our 20% enrichment is now moving even faster than the speed envisaged by the Islamic Consultative Assembly (the Iranian Parliament) in its law, and 20% enriched materials are being produced now,” Araqchi said.
He asserted that the process will continue until an agreement on the implementation of the JCPOA is reached, under which the U.S. should remove all of its sanctions.
"As it has been stressed many times, all of the sanctions must be removed in one step,” the top Iranian negotiator added.
Araqchi also denied indirect talks with Washington through the European parties to the JCPOA, saying the talks involve China and Russia in addition to the Europeans.
"We are negotiating here with all of the current members of the JCPOA, namely the three European countries, Russia and China, as well as the European Union, which is the coordinator of the JCPOA, and they, on the other hand, are talking to the Americans and convey the results of the talks,” he said.
The senior diplomat noted that there are signs that the Americans are reviewing their positions and are moving toward removing all of the sanctions.
"But we are not yet in a position to judge, and negotiations have not yet been concluded,” he said, adding that there is a long path forward but the talks are constructive.
Araqchi also said on Thursday that the Iranian negotiators are engaged in talks over the removal of sanctions all at once as well as details of which and how the sanctions would be lifted.
"In our view, America has to take its actions in one step, then we’ll verify, and then Iran will follow with its own actions,” he reiterated. "How verification will happen is another point of our discussion.”
U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price on Thursday declined to respond directly to whether the U.S. would remove all of the sanctions in one go.
"Well, our response to specific proposals is best delivered in engagement with our European allies and with the Russian and Chinese partners on the ground in Vienna,” he said at a press briefing on Thursday after he was asked to comment on Araqchi’s remarks.
Price described the talks as constructive and as accomplishing what they set out to do.
"And in fact, these discussions have been constructive. This forum has been constructive; it has been businesslike; this has been a step forward,” he said.
The American spokesman also voiced his country’s preparedness to "take the necessary steps to return to compliance with the JCPOA and that would include lifting sanctions that are inconsistent with the JCPOA.”