Iran’s position on nuclear deal is absolutely legitimate, says Lavrov

PHNOM PENH, August 5. /ST/. Russia supports Tehran’s position under the Iran nuclear deal and the United States should recall its stance and return to the original accords, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.

“Now the point is that the Americans are trying to make an altered plan a subject matter of a new agreement while the Iranians insist on the accords approved in 2015. I believe that Iran’s position is absolutely legitimate,” Russia’s top diplomat pointed out.

“The Americans withdrew from the plan, which all the other parties and the Americans themselves once approved. Considering that Washington tried to dismantle it, Washington should simply recall its position and return to the original accords. That is the problem now,” Lavrov said.

Russia’s position on the prospects of signing an agreement on resuming the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is expressly clear and remains unchanged: this plan should be restarted solely in its form approved by the UN Security Council without any amendments or exemptions, the Russian foreign minister said.

US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley announced on August 3 that he would go to Vienna to continue the talks on the Iran nuclear deal. Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanani also said that the Islamic Republic’s delegation would go to Vienna to continue consultations. As the diplomat pointed out, at the upcoming round of negotiations “the parties will hold a discussion and exchange opinions on the proposals that they submitted, including the ideas proposed by Iran.”

The US newspaper Politico earlier reported, citing its sources that the next round of the negotiations on the Iran nuclear deal would take place in Vienna on August 4.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was signed between Iran, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (Russia, the United Kingdom, China, the United States and France) and Germany in 2015. The deal was aimed at overcoming the crisis regarding Tehran’s nuclear program.

In 2018, then-US President Donald Trump announced Washington’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. After that, the United States unleashed a campaign to exert maximum pressure on Tehran, which was actually aimed at strangling Iran’s economy. Incumbent US President Joe Biden has repeatedly signaled his readiness to bring the US back to the Iran nuclear deal.

The Five Plus One Group (Russia, Great Britain, Germany, China, the United States and France) has been holding negotiations with Iran on restarting the Iran nuclear deal in its original form since April last year in Vienna.

Source: TASS