TEHRAN -- Iran will not back down on its red lines in Vienna talks, President Ebrahim Raisi said on Tuesday, after the European Union said the time had come for Washington and Tehran to take political decisions needed to reach an accord.
Eleven months of negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear deal which lifted sanctions on Iran in return have reached their final stages.
Iran has sought to remove all sanctions and it wants guarantees from the United States that it will not abandon the deal once more, after then-U.S. President Donald Trump walked out of the deal in 2018 and reimposed sanctions.
Iran’s top negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani, returned to Tehran on Monday for consultations.
“The government pursues nuclear negotiations in full accordance with the principles and framework set by the Supreme Leader,” Raisi said, referring to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
“It has not and will not back down on any of these red lines,” Raisi said.
Talks coordinator Enrique Mora of the European Union said on Monday that the political decisions needed to conclude the negotiations successfully must be taken in the next few days.
Diplomats say several differences still need to be overcome in the talks, which were also hit by a last-minute demand from Russia for a guarantee from the United States that Russian trade, investment and military-technical cooperation with Iran would not be hindered by sanctions over its conflict with Ukraine.
On Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein Amir-Abdollahian told his Russian counterpart that Iran’s ties with any country, including Russia, should not be impacted by sanctions.
“We are against both war and sanctions. Iran’s ties with countries, including Russia, should not be impacted by sanctions,” Amir-Abdollahian told Sergei Lavrov in a phone call, according to the Iranian foreign ministry.
It said Lavrov also backed Iran’s “logical demands” in talks in Vienna aimed at removing the U.S. sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Lavrov said the revival of the deal must allow participants unhindered cooperation in all areas without discrimination.
“It was underscored that the revival of the JCPOA must provide for all participants to have equal rights in relation to the unhindered development of cooperation in all areas without any discrimination,” the Russian foreign ministry said, using the acronym for the 2015 agreement.
The two ministers also discussed Syria and Ukraine, it said.
Iran’s top diplomat also talked to his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, discussing various regional and international issues of mutual interest to both countries, including the ongoing crisis in Ukraine.
“We support a political solution in Ukraine and any political initiative to end war ... and are ready for any assistance to help advance this process,” Amir-Abdollahian said.
He hoped the upcoming meeting of Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers in Turkey would be successful. He also said an Iranian delegation would take part in the Antalya forum, which is scheduled to be held on March 11-19.
Heads of state and government, ministers, policy makers, diplomats, business leaders, academics, think-tankers and representatives of the youth and media will meet at the second Antalya Diplomacy Forum.
The participants will address a wide range of topics in international relations under the overarching theme of “Recoding Diplomacy.”
Cavusoglu told his counterpart that Turkey opposes sanctions against countries. “Sanctions are not a solution to any problem,” he said.