TEHRAN - Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani has censured the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden for keeping up his predecessor’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, saying Washington is delusional to think Donald Trump’s maximum pressure campaign can bear fruit.
Shamkhani also predicted no smooth path toward a deal in Vienna as long as Washington sticks to the failed policy against Tehran.
Shamkhani made the remarks in a tweet on Tuesday, hours before envoys from Iran and the P4+1 group of countries resume negotiations in the Austrian capital aimed at lifting sanctions and reviving the 2015 deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
“Continuing maximum pressure against #Iran, current U.S. administration has so far tried to meet the goals that Trump failed to achieve through bullying, by making unsupported promises. With this Washington’s illusions, the path to negotiations will not be smooth,” he noted.
The eighth round of the Vienna talks was paused over a week ago to allow delegations to head back to their capitals for political consultations.
Iranian officials have repeatedly stressed that the onus falls on the United States to remove all illegal sanctions against the Islamic Republic in a verifiable manner and guarantee that a new U.S. administration would not breach the JCPOA once again.
On Monday, Shamkhani took to Twitter to assert that a “good deal” is impossible to reach at the talks without the lifting of anti-Iran sanctions.
“The agenda for the Iranian negotiators to continue the eighth round of #ViennaTalks has been carefully defined. An agreement in which the sanctions that form the maximum pressure are not lifted will condition the country’s economy and cannot be the basis of a #GoodDeal,” he wrote.
Iran showed to the world the peaceful nature of its nuclear program by signing the JCPOA with six world states — namely the U.S., Germany, France, Britain, Russia, and China — in 2015.
However, Washington’s exit in May 2018 and the subsequent re-imposition of unilateral sanctions against Tehran left the future of the historic agreement in limbo.
Following a year of strategic patience, Iran decided to let go of some of the restrictions on its nuclear energy program, resorting to its legal rights under the JCPOA, which grants a party the right to suspend its contractual commitments in case of a non-performance by the other side.
The Biden administration had said it is willing to compensate for Trump’s mistake and rejoin the deal, but it has retained the sanctions as leverage.
In recent weeks, the U.S. has tried to dodge responsibility for the prolongation of the talks, threatening Iran with artificial deadlines as well as what it calls “other options” if the talks fail to produce a deal soon.
Iran, on the other hand, says the other parties, particularly the U.S., have yet to take the necessary political decisions to revive the JCPOA.

Unilateral Sanctions Against Iran ‘Crime Against Humanity’

Iran’s UN ambassador, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, says the sanctions imposed on his fellow countrymen, especially those hampering their access to medical and humanitarian data-x-items are tantamount to “a crime against humanity” whose perpetrators must be held to account.
Takht-Ravanchi said none of the provisions of the UN Charter can be interpreted as permission for unilateral sanctions because such coercive measures are contrary to the general principles of international law and violate the prohibition on interfering in the countries’ domestic affairs.
He also complained that some UN member states – in breach of their international obligations – are the frontrunners in the use of illegal restrictive measures against other nations.
“For decades, Iran has been under the most severe economic and financial sanctions slapped by the United States. This has been unprecedented in history. The illegal measures have directly affected the lives of the most vulnerable Iranian citizens, including children, the elderly, and patients,” the envoy added.
“It is a sad fact that some patients, including children with rare diseases, have lost their lives as a result of sanctions on the import of medicines and medical supplies.”
Takht-Ravanchi further noted that unilateral coercive measures target the civilian population as part of a systematic policy and inflict suffering on people.
All sanctions, unilateral or multilateral, have adverse consequences for ordinary people and disproportionately affect children, women, patients, the elderly, and the poor, he said, adding that the bans also put people’s lives at risk during the COVID-19 pandemic and prevent the delivery of humanitarian aid where it is most needed.
Additionally, the ambassador expressed regret that some countries, which pursue their own illegitimate political interests, consider sanctions their preferred means of exerting maximum pressure on developing states.
“As the president of our country said in his speech at the 76th session of the UN General Assembly, unilateral sanctions against the Iranian people, especially those on medicines and humanitarian items, are equal to committing crimes against humanity. The countries imposing sanctions on others should not go unpunished for their heinous crimes,” he emphasized.

Withdrawal From Iran Deal ‘Foolish Decision’

The United States has officially called its withdrawal from the Iran agreement a “foolish decision” that was taken under the former administration of Donald Trump in 2018, but sticks to its narrative that it is Iran that needs to make decisions to revive the deal.
Speaking at a press briefing on Monday, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price defended the recent restoration of the so-called “civ-nuke” sanctions waivers, saying the waiver “in no way enriches Iran.”
“The Trump administration, as you know, provided a similar waiver for years even after its foolish decision to leave the JCPOA, precisely because the last administration recognized the non-proliferation value of these waivers,” Price said.
On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken restored the sanctions waivers, which are related to the agreement, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
The waivers were ended during the Trump administration as part of the former U.S. president’s anti-Iran “maximum pressure” campaign, which he launched in 2018 after withdrawing from the JCPOA.
In response to the restoration of waivers, Iran said a “show” of removing the sanctions is “not considered constructive” as negotiations continue in Austria’s capital, Vienna.
The Biden administration has repeatedly criticized Trump’s maximum pressure policy against Tehran without taking meaningful measures to end it.
Price said the Vienna talks could go one of two ways, including “a mutual return to compliance if Iran is in a position and willing and able to make the sort of political commitments necessary; or the alternatives that we’ve talked about in some less … detail but that we still talked about.”
The Vienna talks resumed on Tuesday after a short break, during which the negotiators had returned to their respective capitals for further consultations.