TEHRAN (Dispatches) – President Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday an ultimate victory awaits will at the conclusion of the ongoing Vienna talks about the 2015 nuclear deal.
“We have made great strides today,” Rouhani told a cabinet session as he criticized the parties that he claimed are uneasy about the nuclear negotiations.
Rouhani said his administration has not held any negotiations from which it has not emerged victorious, no matter what the opponents wanted.
“I promise the nation that the end of the Vienna talks will mark a victory for the Iranian nation, and today we have taken great steps,” he said.
“We want to resolve the problems with exports and imports even though it may upset some parties. We want to have the sanctions terminated, but some are mourning,” he said in remarks which surprised some observers.
Rouhani stated that one of the main achievements of his administration has been the U.S. government’s acknowledgement that its policy of maximum pressure and economic war on Iran has been wrong and ended in failure.
“This is a great victory for Iran that nearly all top U.S. officials have conceded defeat,” he added.
Iran’s top Iranian negotiator in Vienna talks said “good progress” has been made in Vienna talks between the remaining parties to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, but participants need to return to their respective countries for further consultations on certain remaining issues.
“Over the past two weeks, which were the fourth round of the talks, I think good progress has been made, and there are certain key issues that call for more consultation and decisions to be made in the capitals, which we hope will be reached in the next few days so that we can reach a conclusion on them in the next round of the talks,” Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said.
He added that there is agreement over other issues and good steps have been taken on a draft text for reviving the deal, so the negotiators will return to their respective capitals for final consultations and then they will resume the talks in the Austrian capital.
Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s permanent representative at the International Organizations in Vienna, also said “significant progress” has been made by the negotiators seeking to orchestrate a U.S. return to the JCPOA, which was abandoned by former President Donald Trump, but “unresolved issues still remain.”
The remarks came after he was quoted that an “important announcement” would probably be made on Wednesday, when the JCPOA Joint Commission would meet for their next round of talks in Vienna.
Spokesman for the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Abolfazl Amouei, told reporters on Wednesday that the Iranian negotiation delegation has been invited to attend the meeting of the committee next week to present a report on the Vienna talks.
Iran says as the party that left the deal, the U.S. needs to return to compliance with the landmark agreement by removing all the sanctions that were reimposed against Tehran following its withdrawal.
Tehran says it will suspend its counter-measures once it can verify the removal of the bans.