Top Security Official Shamkhani:

U.S., Europe Squandered Luxury of Iran Goodwill

Date: 14 May 2022 - 22:08

News ID: ۱۰۲۵۵۶

TEHRAN -- Iran says
negotiations on the revival of the 2015 nuclear agreement can bear fruit if the West has the will to return to the landmark deal.
Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), said the several rounds of negotiations held in the Austrian capital of Vienna over the past year have failed to bring the U.S. back into compliance with the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
“The Vienna talks have reached a stage where the knot can only be untied through the adherence of the violator party to Iran’s logical and principled approaches,” Shamkhani said.
“The United States, by breach of promise, and Europe, by inaction, scuttled the opportunity to benefit from Iran’s proven goodwill. If they have the will to return, we are ready and an agreement is within reach,” he added.
Foreign Minister Hussein Amir-Abdollahian said Iran and the P4+1 group of countries still have the opportunity to reach a “good and reliable” agreement if the United States makes the necessary decision and honors its commitments.
Amir-Abdollahian made the comments following his phone conversations with European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and meetings with his deputy Enrique Mora.
Mora, who was in Tehran on a two-day visit this week, met with Amir-Abdollahian and Ali Bagheri Kani, the chief Iranian negotiator to the Vienna talks. They discussed efforts to salvage the deal, which has been on life support since the U.S. withdrawal in 2018.
The U.S. administration, under former president Donald Trump, unilaterally left the JCPOA in May 2018 and launched a maximum pressure campaign against the Islamic Republic, despite the latter’s full adherence to its commitments under the deal.
Since April 2021, several rounds of talks between Iran and the five remaining parties to the JCPOA -- Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia -- have been held in the Austrian capital to bring the U.S. back into the Iran deal. The Vienna talks, however, exclude American diplomats due to their country’s withdrawal from the deal.
Talks have been on hold since March as the U.S. insists on its refusal to undo past wrongs, including remove Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) from its foreign terrorist organization list.