TEHRAN – Iran said talks that were set to resume Monday in Vienna should focus on removing sanctions on the Islamic Republic and “guarantees” the U.S. will not abandon its obligations again.
Negotiations to remove the sanctions resumed in late November, after a five-month hiatus following the election of Iran President Ebrahim Raisi.
The talks seek to bring back the United States, after it withdrew from the nuclear accord in 2018 under president Donald Trump and began imposing sanctions on Iran.
Ahead of the resumption, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hussein Amir-Abdollahian said the agenda on Monday should be “the issue of guarantees and verification” on the removal of U.S. sanctions if it returns to the accord.
“The most important thing for us is to reach a point where we can verify that Iranian oil will be sold easily and without any limits, that the money for this oil will be transferred in foreign currency to Iranian bank accounts, and that we will be able to benefit from all the revenues,” he said.
The opening of the eighth round of the talks involves delegations from Iran and the other countries that remain party to the landmark accord -- Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia.
The multilateral nuclear deal reached in 2015 offered Iran a removal of economic sanctions in return for some curbs on its nuclear energy program.
But the deal started to unravel in 2018 when the Trump administration pulled out and began imposing sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
U.S. President Joe Biden has said he is willing to return to the deal but he is refusing to remove the sanctions which were imposed after Trump’s pullout.
“We advise all the participants in the negotiations to come to Vienna with the will to obtain a good agreement,” Iran’s foreign affairs spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Monday.
He said it would be “intolerable” for the West to demand anything from Tehran beyond compliance with the original deal.
Khatibzadeh said Enrique Mora, the European Union diplomat in charge of the talks, would ferry messages and drafts between Iran and the U.S.
“We present our views in writing, and the dialogue is ongoing in Vienna in an indirect way,” he said.
Mikhail Ulyanov, who heads Russia’s delegation in the Vienna talks, said in a tweet that Iranian, Russian and Chinese delegations met Monday morning before the eighth round of talks was to get underway in the afternoon.
The meeting, he said, was aimed at comparing notes. Chief negotiators representing Iran and China, Ali Bagheri Kani and Wang Qun, attended the meeting.
Speaking to reporters in Tehran, Foreign Minister Amir-Abdollahian said Iran wants the new round of talks to focus on its sanctions-hit oil industry.
Iran, he said, wants to “be able to enjoy full economic concessions under the nuclear deal.”
“Guarantee and verification (of the removal of sanctions) are among topics that we have focused on,” he said.
The eighth round of the talks, he said, would start based on a new joint document that incorporates key Iranian demands such as guarantees and verification on the removal of sanctions.
Amir-Abdollahian said an “acceptable” joint text has been agreed which includes talking points on sanctions and nuclear issues.
“We’ve set aside the June 2021 document and have agreed a new joint document
and talks will begin today around that document,” he said, referring to a text that was reached at the end of the seventh round of talks in the Austrian capital.
According to Amir-Abdollahian, Iran’s demands for guarantees that the U.S. will not unilaterally abandon the deal – as it did in 2018 – and a period to verify the effective removal of sanctions, will be discussed.
The new administration of President Raisi has repeatedly demanded the removal of all economic sanctions before Iran reins in its nuclear advances.