TEHRAN - The Iranian administration’s spokesman Ali Bahadori Jahromi on Tuesday underlined the need for the United States to abandon its excessive demands in the Vienna talks aimed at reviving the Iran nuclear deal, saying the current U.S. administration must offer ironclad guarantees that it won’t withdraw from the deal once again.

“Iran has never left the negotiating table and it will not do so in the future as well. The opposite side must abandon its excessive demands, and the guarantees given during the negotiations must be reassuring,” Bahadori Jahromi told reporters.

He went on to point to Tehran’s opinion on the U.S. response to an EU draft text for the revival of the deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), stating that negotiations are underway.

 “We have been following up on the four main issues of guarantees, practical verifications, removal of sanctions in a durable manner, and the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) political claims regarding the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement (CSA) from the onset of the talks,” Bahadori Jahromi stated.

Spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry Nasser Kan’ani said early on Friday that the Islamic Republic had offered its opinion on the U.S.’s response to an EU draft text for the JCPOA revival.

“After receiving the United States’ response, the Islamic Republic’s expert team examined it carefully and Iran’s responses were compiled and submitted to the coordinator tonight,” Kan’ani said.

“The text that was sent (by Iran) has a constructive approach aimed at finalizing the negotiations,” he added.

The diplomat added that Iran’s response was created “following evaluation on various levels.”

Four days of intense talks between representatives of Iran and the five remaining parties to the JCPOA ended on August 8 with a modified text proposed by the EU on the table.

The talks came after a five-month hiatus as the U.S. negotiators failed to overcome their indecisiveness.  

Iran submitted its response to the EU draft proposal on August 15, a week after the latest round of talks wrapped up. After submitting its response, Tehran urged Washington to show “realism and flexibility” in order to reach an agreement.

However, it took almost ten days for the Joe Biden administration to submit its response to Iran’s comments on the EU draft.

The United States, under former president Donald Trump, abandoned the deal in May 2018 and reinstated crippling sanctions that the agreement had lifted.

The talks to salvage the agreement kicked off in the Austrian capital in April last year, months after Biden succeeded Trump, to examine the potential of the US return to the deal and its removal of sanctions.

Despite notable progress, the US indecisiveness and procrastination caused multiple interruptions in the marathon talks.

 

MP Urges IAEA to Terminates ‘Accusatory Inspections’

 

 Fereidoun Abbasi, Iranian lawmaker and a member of the Parliament’s Energy Commission, said that possible military dimensions (PMD) case for Iran should be closed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), allowing to put an end to the “accusatory inspections” of the agency.

 Abbasi, underscored the necessity of the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s insistence on the United States’ providing assurances on a possible deal to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement.

Abbasi said that the West failed to implement 28 provisions of the 2015 deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which led to soaring of the dollar and depreciation of national currency in Iran.

This was followed by a lot of restrictions imposed on Iran and the U.S.’ pull-out of the deal which deprived Iran of its real rights in the deal, the lawmaker added.

Asked if solving the safeguards-related issues would serve as a guarantee for a possible deal, he noted that the European participants and the U.S. have raised false allegations against Iran which are pursued by the IAEA.

Not only should the PMD case against Iran be closed, but also Iran should be able to reclaim the status of a normal member of the IAEA and be exonerated from accusatory inspections, the lawmaker continued.

Most IAEA inspectors visiting Iran have espionage motives, he quoted the former head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran as saying and noted that those inspectors report false allegations and only lead Iran’s nuclear issue into a challenging situation.

Abbasi accused the West of being willing to keep Iran’s nuclear dossier alive despite Iran’s efforts to answer their baseless allegations, underlining that the PMD case should be terminated for that reason.

He called on Iran’s negotiating team to insist on Iran’s principal stances, preserve the enriched uranium the West wants Iran to get rid of, and avoid reforming Arak heavy water reactor.
The lawmaker also called for lifting the JCPOA-related restrictions on Iran’s ability to use plutonium, describing it as the future of the world’s energy which Iran shouldn’t be deprived of.
Abbasi also emphasized the necessity of the continuation of Iran’s right to 90-percent enrichment for scientific and industrial use.