An agreement on Iran’s nuclear program must guarantee “equal rights” to all parties, including Russia, which has been subjected to Western sanctions after the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian government warned on Monday, which could delay the end of the negotiations.
Iran had said on Monday that it expected Russia to communicate “details” of its new demands on the United States.
As optimistic remarks were made about an imminent deal at the Vienna talks, Russia on Saturday called on the United States to ensure that sanctions will not affect its cooperation with Iran.
Achieved by Iran on one side, and the United States, China, France, the United Kingdom, Russia and Germany on the other, the 2015 agreement seeks to prevent Iran from acquiring the atomic bomb, which the country has always denied seeking.
Iran’s chief negotiator Ali Bagheri will return to Tehran on Monday night for “consultations,” the Iranian news agency IRNA said.
In recent days, optimistic statements have proliferated about the possibility of an imminent agreement in the negotiations that are taking place in Vienna.
The spokesman for the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Saeed Khatibzadeh had stated that Iran “is aware of the statements of [el jefe de la diplomacia rusa, Serguéi] Lavrov, to the media” and the Iranian government “hopes to have the details through diplomatic channels”.
The pact has been weakened since 2018 when the United States, under the administration of Donald Trump, decided to unilaterally disassociate itself from it and reimpose sanctions against the Islamic Republic. In response, Iran stopped honoring its agreed commitments.
With the negotiations in Vienna, the aim is for the United States to rejoin the agreement and Iran to once again abide by its commitments.
Russia plays a central role in the implementation of the 2015 deal, known by the acronym JCPOA, most notably by receiving surplus enriched uranium from Tehran.
According to a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iranian reserves of enriched uranium exceed the limit authorized by the 2015 agreement by more than 15 times.
– Equal rights –
The process to restore the agreement “must ensure that all its participants have equal rights with regard to the unhindered development of their cooperation in all fields, without any discrimination,” said a statement from the Russian embassy in Tehran after a phone call. on Monday between the heads of Iranian diplomacy, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and Russian, Serguei Lavrov.
“Underlining his opposition to the war and the application of sanctions, Amir Abdollahian stated that it was self-evident that the atmosphere of sanctions should not affect Iran’s cooperation with foreign countries, including Russia,” the Iranian ministry said in a statement. External relationships.
“It is important that Iran’s peaceful cooperation with other countries, including Russia, is not subject to any sanctions, especially if they are sanctions imposed by a country and not by the United Nations,” the Iranian spokesman said.
“Until now, Russia has had a constructive approach to reaching a collective agreement in Vienna,” he stressed.
On Sunday, the United States considered that Moscow’s new demands are “irrelevant” and argued that the sanctions imposed on Russia since the invasion of Ukraine “have nothing to do” with the dossier of the Iranian nuclear program.
The head of Iranian diplomacy warned on Monday that his country would not allow “any external factor to affect its national interests in the course of the Vienna negotiations”, but did not give more details.
The next few days are seen as decisive for Westerners, as they believe that at the rate at which Iran is making nuclear progress, the deal would soon become outdated.
However, this Monday the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council in Iran, Ali Shamkhani, accused Washington of delaying the conclusion of an agreement in Vienna, and urged him to adopt “a political decision” to achieve it.
“The prospect of a deal in Vienna remains unclear, due to Washington’s delay in making a political decision,” he wrote on Twitter.
