NOURNEWS – Iranian President Seyyed Ibrahim Raisi lashed out at the US and its European allies for challenging their commitments on the nuclear deal and said the West is unable to make a final decision to save the deal.
“We are committed to what we promised, but the US and the Europeans are in a decision-making crisis,” Raisi said on Sunday, addressing a meeting of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei with guests of the 35th International Islamic Unity Conference held in Tehran.
He also referred to Iran’s talks with the world powers, and said, “We do not link the country’s economy to negotiations and things like that.” “The country’s foreign policy is to have broad engagement with the world, specially with its neighbors,” Raisi said.
In 2018, the US left the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a historic nuclear accord that had been clinched between the Islamic Republic and world powers three years earlier.
Upon leaving the deal, the US also reimposed the inhumane sanctions that the agreement had lifted. Washington’s allies in the accord—the UK, France, and Germany—have bowed under the US pressure, toeing the sanction line closely.
So far this year, six rounds of negotiations have taken place in the Austrian capital to examine the prospect of the sanctions’ removal. The talks are expected to pick up where they left last time.
On Wednesdayt, Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Mohammad Eslami rapped Washington and the European states for their non-commitment and inaction towards the nuclear deal.
Eslami made the remarks in a meeting with Austria’s Ambassador to Tehran Wolf Dietrich Heim. “It was only the Islamic Republic, which stayed unilaterally committed to its obligations for long,” Eslami said.
He also pointed to the western states’ attempts to rather paint Iran in a bad light by constantly blaming the Islamic Republic for a set of legal nuclear countermeasures that it has been taking in retaliation for their contractual violations.
“Today, the true defendant has assumed the stance of the claimant,” Eslami complained. He advised that the rest of the JCPOA’s signatories try urging the US and the European parties to resume their obligations under the accord.
“Should all parties resume their commitments, Iran’s will for negotiation is serious,” the official added. The Austrian envoy, for his part, expressed Vienna’s readiness to continue its contribution to the process of the negotiations.
