Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said today that talks in Vienna with international forces to revive the 2015 agreement on Tehran’s nuclear program could not succeed if the United States was not ready to lift sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Reuters reported last week that an agreement between Iran and the United States has begun to emerge, after months of indirect negotiations to revive the 2015 agreement, from which Washington unilaterally withdrew in 2018 under Donald Trump.
“The United States must demonstrate its willingness to lift significant sanctions,” Rice told a joint news conference with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani in Doha.
“In order to reach an agreement, guarantees are needed for negotiations and nuclear issues.”
The draft agreement addresses other issues, including the release of billions of dollars in Iranian funds held by South Korean banks and the release of Western detainees held in Iran.
“The attacks are doomed to fail. The resistance has paid off and none of the issues in the region have a military solution,” Rice said.
Raisi was more cautious than Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Hatibzadeh, who said earlier that the Vienna talks had made “significant progress”.
Hatibzadeh also said that “nothing has been agreed until everything is agreed” in the Vienna talks. “The remaining issues are the most difficult,” he told a weekly news conference.
Hatimzadeh said Iran’s top security body, the Supreme National Security Council, was handling the Vienna talks. The Council reports directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The 2015 agreement between Iran and world powers limited Tehran’s uranium enrichment to make it more difficult to develop nuclear weapons material in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions against Tehran.
Iran is ready to exchange prisoners with the United States, the Iranian foreign minister said on Saturday, adding that talks on reviving the nuclear deal could be reached “as soon as possible” if the United States takes the necessary political decisions.
Speaking from Doha on the sidelines of a gas conference, Iranian Oil Minister Javad Ouji described the sanctions as a violation of international law and a threat to global energy security, according to the state-run Tasnim news agency.
Iran has violated some of the terms of the nuclear deal after the United States withdrew from it and reinstated sanctions under Trump.
Israel, Iran’s number one enemy widely regarded as having its own nuclear arsenal, is closely monitoring the talks in Vienna. It is pressing Washington on the terms of an emerging Iranian nuclear deal, Israeli officials said today, setting the prospect of a bilateral agreement with Washington the next day to address their concerns.
Although not part of the talks, Israel is consulting with the US government in the hope that it will have a greater say in any revival of the agreement reached with Tehran over its objections.
Source: AMPE
Source: Capital
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