Tehran will not negotiate its return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in Vienna unless the United States fulfills its commitments under the deal, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said on Friday.
"We will not waste time on negotiations unless the other side [the US] seriously returns to them. If the US is serious about returning to the nuclear deal, we are ready to do so," Amirabdollahian told a press conference in Beirut.
In 2015, Iran signed the nuclear deal with the P5+1 group, which includes the United States, China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany and the European Union. It required Tehran to scale back its nuclear program and drastically reduce its uranium reserves in exchange for sanctions relief, including the lifting of an arms embargo five years after the deal was made.
In 2018, the US abandoned its conciliatory stance, withdrawing from the JCPOA and implementing hardline policies against Iran, prompting the latter to largely abandon its own obligations under the accord.
Since April, Vienna has been hosting talks aimed at preventing the Iran nuclear deal from failing altogether. The sixth round of the talks finished on June 20 and the negotiations have since hit a deadlock.
Over the past week, both Tehran and Washington have affirmed their readiness to revive the Vienna talks as soon as possible. (ANI/Sputnik)
( With inputs from ANI )
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