Top negotiator: Iran will not allow attritional talks in Vienna, will exit if other sides not serious

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News ID: 51534
Iran » Iran
Publish Date: 8:46 - 26 April 2021
Monday, 26 April 2021_Iran’s top negotiator in Vienna talks on the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal says Tehran will not allow negotiations to take long, and will leave the talks if it feels the other parties lack seriousness and only seek to buy time or wish to add other issues to the talks.

Top negotiator: Iran will not allow attritional talks in Vienna, will exit if other sides not serious“One cannot predict a specific deadline [for the talks], but we will not let the negotiations become attritional,” Abbas Araqchi said on Sunday, echoing earlier remarks by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, after attending a meeting of the Parliament’s Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy on the ongoing talks that began early this month in the Austrian capital.

“At the same time, we are not in a rush, because there are serious issues being discussed during the talks, which need to be carefully examined,” said Araqchi, who also serves as Iran’s deputy foreign minister for political affairs.

Iran and the remaining parties to the 2015 nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), are currently involved in ongoing discussions to save the deal. The JCPOA has survived almost three years of unilateral US sanctions on Iran, which in turn prompted Tehran to reduce its own commitments in a legal move under the accord.

The US, which withdrew from the deal in 2018, is also in talks with the JCPOA participants, except for Iran. The talks have so far failed to lead to concrete results as the US insists on pushing its own narrative with regard to several issues – including which sanctions need to be removed – into the talks.

The US is also pressing for a step-for-step removal of the sanctions, which has been rejected categorically by Tehran.

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