TEHRAN -- Iran’s foreign
ministry urged the United States on Monday to put its utmost effort into making “plan A work to avoid Iran’s Plan B” from going into effect.
“I advise the U.S. secretary of state to spare no effort to make its Plan A work, because a Plan B is not attractive to anyone,” ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told reporters at a weekly news briefing.
“He knows better than anyone that every country has its own Plan B, and ours may not please them,” he said when asked about Anthony Blinken’s warning that the time left for salvaging the 2015 nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was very short.
Khatibzadeh stressed that Iran will not concede on matters important to it in order to reach a deal.
“Had Iran surrendered its redlines, an agreement would have emerged in the first six rounds of the talks. We will not abandon our main demands and our redlines for the sake of reaching a deal.”
The spokesman said important disagreements remain, the most important of which is the other sides’ slow response to Iran’s initiatives.
“On technical issues, considerable progress has been made, but on removing sanctions, we’re waiting for political decisions yet to be made by the other side.”
Over the weekend, experts continued discussing the four main drafts being worked on, Khatibzadeh said, insisting that many question marks have been lifted.
“Agreements have been made about ideas to a large extent and they are turning into words and sentences. But the issues that remain are key subjects that require certain political decisions, particularly by Washington. They have to announce their decisions about the
 remaining issues, especially the removal of sanctions,” he said. “Washington must make tough decisions on the removal of sanctions and remaining issues. If this happens…we can move faster towards an agreement.”
European Union envoy Enrique Mora, who is the coordinator of the Vienna talks, also said Sunday that the success of negotiations is still uncertain.
Mora made the remarks in a tweet on following a meeting of the working group on the removal of the unilateral U.S. sanctions on Tehran.
Referring to a letter by more than 100 U.S. Republican lawmakers to President Joe Biden last week to immediately abandon the nuclear talks, Khatibzadeh said the issue is a matter of domestic U.S. politics and does not concern Iran.
He insisted that the Biden administration must adhere to the commitments the U.S. made in 2015 in order to allow it to return to the nuclear deal.