What’s the Deal in Vienna?

Date: 22 June 2021 - 22:44

News ID: ۹۱۶۱۶

TEHRAN -- The United States is still refusing to remove anti-Iran sanctions and honor commitments required for its return to the 2015 nuclear deal after six rounds of talks in Vienna, Press TV reported Tuesday.
Sources close to the Vienna talks told the television that President Joe Biden is sticking to his predecessor Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, it said.
According to the sources, Washington is refusing to go back on congressional laws and executive orders as well as the regulations of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the Treasury Department, and the Judiciary against Iran.
Including are presidential executive Orders 12959, 13599, 13876 and 13499, along with the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA), the visa law, Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act and the dollar U-Turn, it said.
The sources said the U.S. administration is also keeping in place the arms embargo and the respective executive order issued by Trump.
This is while the UN arms ban on Iran was lifted last year under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and Security Council Resolution 2231, but the Trump administration reinstated the same embargo with an executive order.
Moreover, the United States has not yet agreed to a complete removal of oil, banking and transportation sanctions to dispense with the need for periodic renewal of its waivers.
According to Press TV, the U.S. has only proposed a temporary suspension of oil and banking sanctions for 120 or 180 days, after which Iran would need to have the consent of the U.S. president to continue trade.
It cited its sources as saying that neither has the U.S. accepted a real verification of the sanctions removal, and opposed the removal of the bans altogether, dangling the idea of a step-by-step approach instead.
Moreover, the U.S. has not ruled out the possibility of another withdrawal from the JCPOA, and is refusing to guarantee that it will not pull out from the agreement again.
“Washington has not yet accepted Tehran’s request for a guarantee that anti-Iran sanctions would not be re-imposed and that the so-called snapback provision in the JCPOA would not be invoked,” the television said.
The sources said the United States keeps insisting on its excessive demands and the imposition of new nuclear commitments on Iran, it added.
Also, the United States does not consider itself obliged to pay compensation for damage caused by its withdrawal from the JCPOA and the imposition of illegal sanctions on Iran, Press TV said.
Iran, it said, has urged the United States to avoid pressuring the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to reopen the so-called possible military dimensions (PMD) file on Iran’s nuclear program, something that has not yet been accepted by Washington.
The United States and Europe have called for Iran to undertake new commitments beyond the JCPOA such as negotiations on its regional policies in exchange for a temporary suspension of some sanctions, it added.
Iran is set to usher in a new government headed by Ebrahim Raisi, who bluntly ruled out any meeting with President Joe Biden even if the U.S. agrees to join the nuclear deal and remove its draconian sanctions on Tehran.
“We tell the United States that you have to remove all sanctions and must return to the deal and fulfill your obligations,” he told his first news conference in Tehran since winning Friday’s election.
Raisi said any negotiation that secures Iran’s national interests will be supported by his administration, but “we will not tie the economic situation and people’s livelihood to these negotiations and we will not allow talks for the sake of talks.”