TEHRAN — Iran's president has assured his French
counterpart that his government is serious about resumed talks on reviving a
2015 nuclear deal but stressed that lifting US sanctions is the absolute
priority.
اضافة اعلان
President Ebrahim Raisi's comments in a phone call with
Emmanuel Macron on Monday evening were his first after the reopening of the
talks in Vienna earlier in the day.
Raisi said that Washington has a special responsibility to
rebuild confidence in the agreement as it was then US president Donald Trump
who had brought it to its knees in 2018 by pulling out and reimposing sweeping
sanctions.
"Those who have started to violate the nuclear deal
must gain the confidence of the other party for the negotiations to proceed in
a real and fruitful manner," he said.
Raisi said Iran was serious about the talks on reviving the
agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and expected
its negotiating partners to be so too.
"Sending a full team to the talks shows Iran's serious
will in these talks," he said. "If the Americans lift the sanctions
and the Europeans honor their commitments, ... Iran will meet its obligations
too."
Raisi said Iran stood ready to resume "full
cooperation" with the UN nuclear watchdog, which was tasked with
monitoring Iran's implementation of the strict limits on its nuclear activities
it agreed to in 2015 in return for the lifting of international sanctions.
'Resume obligations'
A statement issued by the French presidency after the phone
call said that France's goal in the talks was to "see Iran return to full
respect for all of its commitments under the JCPOA and that the US return to
the agreement".
Macron "underscored the need for Iran to engage
constructively in this direction so that the exchanges allow a swift return to
the agreement," it said.
"Iran must return without delay to compliance with all
its commitments and obligations... and quickly resume cooperation that allows
the (UN atomic) agency to fully carry out its mission."
In a separate phone call with UN chief Antonio Guterres on
Monday evening, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian promised that
Iran would resume its obligations under the nuclear deal as soon as the other
parties did so too.
"The other parties must resume their obligations in
full," he said. "When that happens, Iran will halt its compensatory
measures."
He was referring to Iran's tit-for-tat suspension of key
undertakings in the 2015 deal that has seen it enrich uranium in larger
quantities and to higher levels of purity than it had originally promised.
The talks in Vienna are the first since Iran paused them
after Raisi's election in June and then ignored Western appeals to restart them
for several months.
The remaining parties to the 2015 agreement Britain, China,
France, Germany and Russia are participating directly. At Iran's insistence,
the US is doing so only indirectly.
The EU chair of the talks, Enrique Mora, said after the
first session on Monday that he felt "extremely positive", although
he acknowledged that "difficult issues" had yet to be tackled.
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