MOSCOW (Dispatches) -- New talks between Iran and other signatories of a 2015 nuclear deal will only be successful if they remove U.S. sanctions, Iran’s chief negotiator and Russian foreign ministry have said.
Ali Baqeri Kani, who is also deputy foreign minister, met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Ryabkov here on Friday, where they discussed the removal of the most draconian sanctions ever on the Islamic Republic.
Iran’s official news agency IRNA quoted the two diplomats as saying after their meeting that “the new talks will only be successful if they lead to the removal of sanctions and the full implementation by the parties of their commitments”.
Baqeri Kani was quoted earlier as saying that Iran is negotiating with 4+1, which are three European members of the nuclear deal, Russia and China.
Baqeri had also emphasized that Iran will carry on discussions on a bilateral basis with 4+1.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hussein Amir-Abdollahian demanded on Wednesday that the U.S. must show “goodwill” and release $10 billion of Iran’s frozen funds to help advance the talks.
Baqeri who met with the EU negotiator Enrique Mora in Brussels on Wednesday said the Vienna talks will resume by the end of November.
Asked in Moscow on Thursday if there is a more concrete date, Baqeri said, “What is more important in the new round of negotiations is the readiness of the other side to make serious decisions about removing sanctions.”
On Friday, Baqeri was quoted as saying that Britain, France and Germany “also need to live up to their commitments and work to remove the illegal sanctions.”
Iranian TV network Press TV reporting on the Moscow meeting said, “The scope of the sanctions removal and the need for the U.S. to guarantee that it would not ditch the JCPOA again are among the key issues not settled during the administration of former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.”
The JCPOA is the acronym for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or the nuclear agreement.
Baqeri also emphasized in Moscow that Russia and China share common views on the regional and international issues with Iran, including the nuclear agreement.
President Joe Biden will discuss Iran with the leaders of the UK, Germany and France on the sidelines of the G20 meeting this weekend, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Thursday. He emphasized that Biden’s aim is to coordinate the Western position in the nuclear talks.
An EU spokesman said Friday a recent meeting between Iran’s top negotiator and the EU deputy foreign policy chief in Brussels was “useful”.
Peter Stano said the Wednesday meeting between Baqeri and Enrique Mora in Brussels “helped to define a way forward to resume negotiations in Vienna.”
“We are working together with other partners, including Iran and other signatories (to the 2015 nuclear deal) to fix a concrete date as early as possible to reconvene in Vienna,” he added.
“We agree to start negotiations before the end of November. Exact date would be announced in the course of the next week,” Baqeri tweeted.
Foreign Minister Amir-Abdollahian said Tehran would “evaluate” the outcome of the Brussels meeting before fixing a precise date.
“But it will not be too later,” he told journalists at a press conference in the Iranian capital.
The agreement between Iran and the remaining parties to the JCPOA to find a long-term solution has been moribund since former U.S. president Donald Trump walked out of the deal in May 2018 and imposed sweeping sanctions.
His successor Joe Biden has said he is ready to re-enter the agreement, but he has failed to take any meaningful action to bring the U.S. back to compliance with the nuclear deal, including by removing all sanctions imposed, re-imposed or relabeled by his predecessor.
Instead, Biden has indicated his intention to retain the key elements of the sanctions as pressure leverage against the Islamic Republic.
The U.S. point man on Iran, Rob Malley, on Monday echoed the failed tactics of the past American administrations, threatening that the United States had “other options” if Iran’s nuclear work advanced.
Following a year of strategic patience, Iran resorted to its legal rights stipulated in Article 26 of the JCPOA, which grants a party the right to suspend its contractual commitments in case of non-compliance by other signatories and let go of some of the restrictions imposed on its nuclear energy program.
As a result, Iran has boosted its enrichment to higher purity levels and stopped its voluntary restrictions on the country’s nuclear energy program.