Good, reliable outcome within reach in Vienna if US adheres to commitments: Iran FM

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian says Tehran and the P4+1 group of countries still have the opportunity to reach a “good and reliable” agreement on the revival of the 2015 deal if the United States makes the necessary decision and honors its commitments.

In a post on his Twitter account on Friday, Amir-Abdollahian said his contacts with the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and his deputy Enrique Mora's talks with senior Iranian negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani in Tehran this week provided "another opportunity to focus on initiatives to resolve the remaining issues."

"A good and reliable outcome is within reach if US makes its decision & adheres to its commitments," the top Iranian diplomat tweeted.

Mora launched his two-day visit to Tehran on Wednesday and met the chief Iranian negotiator to the Vienna talks with the five remaining parties to the 2015 deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), on efforts to salvage the deal, which has been on life support since the US withdrawal in 2018 and its subsequent coercive measures against the Islamic Republic.

Several rounds of negotiations between Iran and the P4+1 group of countries – Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia – have been held in the Austrian capital since April 2021 to bring Washington back into the deal. The Vienna talks, however, exclude American diplomats due to their country’s withdrawal.

Talks have been on hold since March as the US insists on its refusal to undo its past wrongs, including removing Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) from its foreign terrorist organization list.

Iran maintains that IRGC’s designation in 2019 was part of former president Donald Trump administration’s so-called maximum pressure campaign against Iran, and therefore, it has to be reversed unconditionally.

The Joe Biden administration disagrees, even though it has admitted on countless occasions that Trump’s maximum pressure policy has been a disastrous failure. It has retained the IRGC’s designation and the economic sanctions as leverage in the talks.

The Iranian foreign minister said last month that the United States’ current administration should have the courage to correct its predecessor’s mistakes concerning re-imposition of oppressive sanctions against Iran.

Talks with Iran 'positive enough' to reopen Vienna negotiations: Borrell

The European Union’s foreign policy chief also on Friday expressed hope that the stalled talks over the JCPOA revival and the removal of sanctions against Iran can lead to a final agreement, saying that he believed there had been enough progress during Mora's consultations with Iranian officials in Tehran this week to re-launch the talks after two months of deadlock.

Speaking to reporters at a G7 foreign ministers' meeting in northern Germany, Borrell added that Iran's response had been "positive enough" after Mora had delivered a message that things could not continue as they were.

"These kind of things cannot be solved overnight, but let’s say the negotiations were blocked and they have been deblocked,” he said, emphasizing that "there is a perspective of reaching agreement."

"It has gone better than expected - the negotiations were stalled, and now they have been reopened."

Meanwhile, Mora said on Friday that he has been retained by the German police at the Frankfurt airport for several hours on return from Teheran without even a single explanation.

"We were kept separated. Refusal to give any explanation for what seems a violation of the Vienna Convention," he said on Twitter.

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