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Iran will not resume Vienna talks as long as 'Western pressures' exist

Monday, 06 September 2021 5:13 PM [ Last Update: Monday, 06 September 2021 5:13 PM ]

Yusef Jalali
Press TV, Tehran

Talks over the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal have faced a three month hiatus following Iranian elections in June that brought Ebrahim Raeisi to power.

The European parties to the multilateral accord are now urging Iran to come back to negotiations.

The new Iranian president, Ebrahim Raeisi, says resuming the talks is on his agenda, but that they should not be held under western pressure and the US must first lift all its sanctions against Iran before the talks are resumed.

Six rounds of talks on restoring the deal have so far been held in Austria's capital, Vienna, since April.

The discussions are aimed at bringing the US and Iran back to full compliance, after Washington unilaterally abandoned the deal and Tehran retaliated by scaling back its own commitments.

The US seeks a broader deal that would include Iran's missile program, but Tehran doesn't buy any such notion as negotiation for the sake of negotiation, says Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman in his weekly briefing.

Under the deal signed in 2015 between Iran and the six world powers, Tehran agreed to curb its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.

In 2018, ex-US-President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the deal and reinstated sanctions on Iran.

Tehran in return moved away from some of its obligations and resumed Uranium enrichment to 20 percent purity.

In the Vienna talks, Tehran vowed to reverse all its retaliatory steps, on the condition that Washington removes all its anti-Iran sanctions.

The new Iranian administration has not given any specific date as to when it will return to the Vienna talks.

But it's clear that the fate of the deal is equally important for the Raisi administration as it was for the previous government, except it is not the first priority for the new Iranian president, as he doubts the US's sincerity in lifting the sanctions after six rounds of fruitless talks.

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