TEHRAN -- Iran is demanding that all U.S. sanctions should be lifted in a verifiable process, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Monday, a few weeks ahead of a resumption of talks between Tehran and other signatories of a 2015 nuclear deal to remove sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Khatinzadeh said the United States should provide guarantees that it will not abandon again the deal if talks succeed.
The talks are set to resume on Nov. 29 in Vienna. Former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the accord three years ago and reimposed sanctions on Iran.
Echoing Iran’s official stance, Khatibzadeh said Washington must lift all sanctions imposed on Tehran in a verifiable process and “recognize its fault in ditching the pact”.
Khatibzadeh said Ali Baqeri-Kani, who is Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, will travel this week as Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs to the capitals of three European parties to the nuclear pact.
Washington, he said, needs to guarantee that no future U.S. president would be able to “make a mockery of the world and international law” again by abandoning the agreement.
“The path for a U.S. return to the JCPOA is quite clear,” he said of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Washington, as “the culprit responsible for the status quo, needs to accept to come back from the path it has taken.”
The diplomat explained that the U.S. then needs to remove all the cruel and illegal sanctions it has slapped against Tehran following its unilateral withdrawal from the nuclear deal in May 2018 “in one go and in an effective way.”
The U.S., first and foremost, would better “prove its brotherhood,” he said, dismissing Washington’s cynical stance on Iran’s willingness to fully honor the deal.
According to Khatibzadeh, President Joe Biden’s administration has done in practice the opposite of what it has promised to do in words.
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 Raisi administration has announced on several occasions that it will resume the talks only with the aim of removing all of the United States’ illegal sanctions and that it will not take part in talks for the sake of talks.