West 'not serious' in nuclear deal negotiations, says Raisi

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Western countries continued finger-pointing at Iran shows that they are not serious in the negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said on Thursday, adding that the “unjust” sanctions on his country were against international rules.

Iran and the US engaged in two-days-long indirect talks that started on Tuesday in Doha aimed at reviving the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The European Union-mediated negotiations ended without progress. 

In a Thursday phone call with the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Raisi criticized the West’s “inappropriate approach” towards Iran during the talks to revive the nuclear deal, stating that their “simultaneous and repetitious” accusations reveal that they are not serious in the talks, and are trying to affect the course of the negotiations, reported Iranian state media. 

Iran and the US have been engaged in indirect talks since April last year aimed at reviving the JCPOA, which Washington withdrew from in 2018 under former president Donald Trump. Iran insists that the US must lift its crippling sanctions, including those on Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and provide a guarantee that future US administrations will not be able to withdraw from the deal.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on Thursday deemed the recent talks with the US as “positive”, claiming that an agreement between the two countries can be reached if Washington is “serious”. 

However, the US and EU said otherwise.

US State Department on Wednesday said that the talks made “no progress,” and EU coordinator Enrique Mora said the intense talks had “not yet” yielded the progress the EU team sought. 

In the phone call, Raisi also stated that inspections from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have never found any proof to suggest that Iran has not pursued a peaceful nuclear path, adding that their stance in the talks remains “transparent and rational” as they ask for the removal of the “illegal” sanctions and require guarantees.

Washington has repeatedly argued that Tehran’s demand for the lifting of sanctions on its Revolutionary Guards was a separate issue from the nuclear talks.

Earlier in June, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) adopted a resolution censuring Iran over its failure to explain the discovery of enriched uranium at three sites that it did not declare.