TEHRAN — Iran said Monday it is ready to resume nuclear talks based on draft proposals it submitted last week, criticizing Western countries for stalling negotiations in Vienna.
Last week, the Islamic Republic returned to international talks in Vienna aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear deal after a five-month pause through removing all sanctions on Tehran.
On Wednesday, it submitted two draft resolutions on the removal of U.S. sanctions and nuclear-related measures.
But over the weekend, the United States, as well as European participants in the Vienna talks, accused Iran of backtracking.
“Our texts are fully negotiable,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told a news conference about the draft proposals, also saying that the other parties “want to play a blame game.”
“We are waiting naturally to hear the other side’s opinion concerning these texts and whether they have a real (counter) offer to make to us in writing,” Khatibzadeh added.
The seventh round of nuclear talks ended Friday after five days in Vienna, with delegations returning to their national capitals and expected to go back to Austria next week.
Khatibzadeh said the negotiations were expected to resume “at the end of the week,” without elaborating.
The landmark 2015 nuclear accord was initially agreed on between Iran and Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.
But it began unraveling in 2018 when then-U.S. president Donald Trump, with strong encouragement from then-Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, pulled out and reimposed sanctions.
Zionist war minister Benny Gantz and Mossad chief David Barnea will push, during their meetings this week in Washington with senior Biden administration officials, for the U.S. to carry out a military strike on Iranian targets, the occupying regime of Israel’s three main TV news broadcasts reported Sunday.
According to the reports, which did not cite sources, Gantz and Barnea will urge their American interlocutors to develop a “Plan B” vis-à-vis Iran, seeing the stalled nuclear talks in Vienna as an opportunity to press the U.S. to take a more aggressive stance toward the Islamic Republic.
Along with calling for tougher sanctions, the Zionists will reportedly ask the US to take military action against Iran, reports said.
Channel 12 news said the target of a U.S. potential attack would be not a nuclear facility in Iran, but rather a site like what it called an alleged Iranian base in Yemen.
The Islamic Republic has vehemently rejected having such bases.