VIENNA (Dispatches) – Iran on Tuesday hit out at Western parties to its 2015 nuclear deal for “persisting in their blame game”, a day after European diplomats warned the pact would soon become defunct if efforts to revive it fail.
In a pessimistic assessment of talks in Vienna, diplomats from Britain, France and Germany warned on Monday that “time is running out” to rescue the pact, which they said would very soon become “an empty shell” without progress in negotiations.
Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani, responded on Twitter by saying: “Some actors persist in their blame game habit, instead of real diplomacy. We proposed our ideas early, and worked constructively and flexibly to narrow gaps.”
Referring to the United States and its withdrawal from the nuclear pact in 2018, Kani wrote: “Diplomacy is a two-way street. If there’s real will to remedy the culprit’s wrongdoing, the way for a quick, good deal will be paved.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed on Tuesday that Washington continues to pursue diplomacy with Iran because “it remains, at this moment, the best option”, but added that it was “actively engaging with allies and partners on alternatives”.
The U.S. government, however, has taken no step to undo its past wrongs, including its most draconian sanctions ever imposed on the Islamic Republic after unilaterally leaving the nuclear deal in 2018.
Instead, the Biden administration has imposed new sanctions on Iran, indicating that its claims of renouncing the former Trump regime’s mistakes are a political ruse intended to advance new American demands.
“Who violated the deal? Americans. Who should compensate for that and be flexible? Americans of course,” said a senior Iranian official.
Talks with the aim of reviving the nuclear deal and remove the sanctions started in April, but stopped in June after the election of President Ebrahim Raisi, whose negotiating team has returned to Vienna after five months with better preparation and initiative.
During the seventh round of talks, which began on Nov. 29, Iran presented two draft proposals which the Europeans took to their capitals for discussion, resulting in a break.
A senior U.S. official has claimed that the new Iranian team had abandoned any compromises made in the previous six round of talks under the former administration of President Hassan Rouhani.
Significant gaps reportedly remain on some key issues - such as the speed and scope of removing
 sanctions and how and when Iran will reverse its remedial nuclear measures.
Iran insists on immediate removal of all sanctions in a verifiable process. Washington has said it would remove curbs “inconsistent” with the nuclear pact if Iran resumed compliance, implying it would leave in place others such as those imposed under such fabricated labels as terrorism or human rights.
The Islamic Republic took its remedial measures, scaling back its compliance as per an article of the nuclear deal after patiently waiting for a year for the other parties to compensate or protect Iran against the sanctions, but to no avail.
Iran now seeks guarantees that “no U.S. administration” will renege on the pact again. But Biden is refusing to promise this, claiming that the nuclear deal is a non-binding political understanding, not a legally binding treaty.
Other American leaders, including critics of the agreement, have warned that they would scrap any possible understanding as soon as the current administration was gone.
“How can we trust Americans again? What if they ditch the deal again? Therefore the party that violated the deal should provide guarantees that it will never happen again,” said the Iranian official.
“This is their problem not ours to solve ... They can find a solution and give us guarantees.”
Another important detractor is the occupying regime of Israel. Bagheri Kani said Tuesday the Zionist regime is frantically trying to poison the atmosphere of the talks through “negative, non-constructive, and destructive measures both at the venue of the negotiations and outside”.
The chief of Iran’s nuclear agency, however, said Tehran won’t be affected by the malicious propaganda perpetuated by the occupying regime.