TEHRAN -- Talks in Vienna on
reviving a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran through removing sanctions on the country have reached a sensitive point and Western countries should take a realistic approach to settle remaining matters, Iran’s foreign minister said on Wednesday.
“Nuclear talks in Vienna are reaching a sensitive and important point,” the minister, Hussein Amir-Abdollahian, told a news conference with his Omani counterpart in Tehran.
“We wonder whether the Western side can adopt a realistic approach to go through the remaining points of the talks.”
Amir-Abdollahian said Iran had underlined to the European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, during this month’s annual Munich Security Conference that Tehran would never cross its red lines during negotiations.
On Tuesday, Iran’s top security official lashed out at the parties that have failed to fulfill their commitments as per the 2015 Iran deal, saying the Islamic Republic should always use its peaceful nuclear capability as a “sword of Damocles” over the heads of those who violate the agreement.
“Peaceful capability of #Iran’s nuclear program must always remain like sword of Damocles above the heads of violators as a real guarantee for fulfillment of their obligations,” Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani said in a post on his Twitter account.
He added that after the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in 2018, “it was better to use such an inherent guarantee” in a more effective way.
Iran and the remaining parties to the JCPOA -- Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China -- started talks in the Austrian capital of Vienna last April on the assumption that the U.S., under the Joe Biden administration, is willing to repeal the so-called maximum pressure policy.
Tehran says it will not settle for anything less than the removal of all U.S. sanctions in a verifiable manner. It also wants guarantees that Washington would not abandon the agreement again.
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raeisi said on Monday that any agreement with the P4+1 group of countries in Vienna for the JCPOA revival requires the removal of all anti-Iran sanctions, protection of the Iranian nation’s interests, valid guarantees, and closure of political cases.
As the eighth round of talks between Tehran and the P4+1 group of countries continues in Vienna on the JCPOA revival, Iran’s lead negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani and European Union deputy foreign policy chief Enrique Mora, who also coordinates the negotiations, met on Tuesday.
In a post on his Twitter account, Mora said the Vienna talks are at a “crucial moment” while the sides are nearing the end after 10 months of negotiations.
“The result is still uncertain. Key issues need to be fixed. But all delegations are fully engaged. Intense work in Coburg,” the senior EU official tweeted, referring to the venue of the ongoing Vienna talks.
Meanwhile, experts of Iran and the five remaining parties to the JCPOA held intensive talks and consultations over the past two days.