Continued US refusal to terminate Iran sanctions will definitely bring talks to halt: Source tells Press TV

An informed source tells Press TV that the United States’ continued refusal to terminate all the sanctions it has imposed on Iran will definitely bring the Vienna negotiations on the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal to a halt.

Speaking to Press TV on the condition of anonymity, the source said Iran is still emphasizing the full implementation of the deal’s Article 29 and the termination of all the sanctions related to the nuclear deal and those re-imposed or relabeled during the term of ex-US President Donald Trump.

“America’s insistence on not terminating these sanctions will lead to a definitive halt in the negotiations” under way in Vienna, Austria, on revitalizing the nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the source said.

According to the source, as the Iranian negotiating team has repeatedly announced during the Vienna talks, all the sanctions that were imposed on the Islamic Republic under any title after the JCPOA took effect — whether during the term of Trump or that of his predecessor Barack Obama —  should be removed and all the JCPOA articles should be precisely implemented.

The so-called Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) as well as visa and U-turn regulations are all in violation of Article 29 of the deal, the source said.

The source said the US must remove all the obstacles in the way of the normalization of Iran’s trade ties with world countries in accordance with Article 29 of the JCPOA.

Based on the information obtained by Press TV, the United States has not so far accepted to make the reforms needed to reduce the risks posed to economic and banking cooperation with Iran.

Iran believes that the US refusal to remove the sanctions re-imposed under new labels on Iranian individuals and institutions on the US’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) List is tantamount to circumventing the removal of the sanctions by the US, which will be rejected by Tehran, the source said.

Trump abandoned the JCPOA three years after its conclusion and launched what his team called a “maximum pressure” campaign with the stated objective of forcing Iran to renegotiate “a better agreement.”

The Islamic Republic refused to bow down to the pressure and adopted instead a “maximum resistance” policy, which includes economic measures to weather the bans as well as reducing Tehran's compliance with the JCPOA.

Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, has claimed that his administration is willing to return to the JCPOA, but conditioned the move to Tehran’s full compliance.

Tehran says Washington is the side which abandoned the JCPOA and thus, it has to take the first step toward the JCPOA by unconditionally removing all the sanctions on Iran in a verifiable manner, given its long record of not playing by the rules.

In recent weeks, envoys from Russia, China, Germany, France, Britain and Iran — the remaining signatories to the JCPOA — have held several rounds of talks in Vienna aimed at ending the Tehran-Washington row and reviving the JCPOA.

They have established three expert-level working groups tasked with unravelling the most important issues and drafting solutions.

A US delegation headed by the US administration’s special envoy for Iran, Rob Malley, was also in the Austrian capital, but it was not attending the discussions.

Borrell, US Blinken discuss JCPOA on sidelines of G7 summit in UK

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday exchanged views on the latest developments surrounding the multilateral nuclear deal in the margins of a two-day meeting of foreign ministers from the G7 group of the world’s most developed nations in Britain.

According to a statement by the European Union External Action Service, the meeting was an “opportunity” to discuss on a bilateral basis some of the most urgent foreign and security challenges ahead.

It added that Borrell and Blinken addressed the latest developments in the ongoing discussions on the JCPOA “in view of a possible return of the United States to the JCPOA and how to ensure the full and effective implementation of the JCPOA.” 

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk