Iran deputy FM says proposal for next round of indirect US talks ‘received, under review’
Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs says the Islamic Republic has received a proposal for the fifth round of indirect nuclear negotiations with the United States, which the country is currently studying.
Kazem Gharibabadi, who is member of the Iranian delegation to the talks, made the announcement at a conference titled “Unilateral Sanctions and Access to Justice at National, Regional and International Levels” in the capital Tehran on Tuesday.
“We have received a proposal regarding the next round of indirect talks between Iran and the US, and it is under review,” he said, but provided no further details about the content or timing of the proposed negotiations.
The announcement came a day after American media claimed that the next round of Iran-US nuclear talks was expected to take place “at the weekend” in Rome, at a time that the US administration’s excessive demands in the past couple of days, including “zero enrichment” for Iran’s nuclear program, has left the fate of negotiations in limbo.
Pointing to the longtime US sanctions against the Islamic Republic, Iran’s deputy foreign minister said the bans were in contravention of the Charter of International Law and against international norms as they pursued political and security goals leading to the destruction of national economies.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran is a perfect example of a country whose people have lived under a sanctions regime, and these sanctions have been imposed as part of the policy known as ‘maximum pressure’ against Iran that culminated in the limited access to medical and health equipment for the people, and individuals with cancer or other chronic diseases cannot receive the necessary treatments,” Gharibabadi said.
“The reason is that international banks refuse [to do financial] transactions [because of sanctions]; this is not only collective destruction but also a public punishment against the people of a country.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Sunday warned the United States against making “unrealistic demands” in talks, saying Tehran will continue its enrichment program with or without a deal with Washington.
He said that such statements were “completely detached from the reality of negotiations.”
Iran has held four rounds of indirect talks with the US on a replacement for the 2015 deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which have been generally described as positive by the two sides.
In 2018, US President Donald Trump walked out of the landmark agreement between Iran and several other countries that gave it sanctions relief in return for confidence-building restrictions on its nuclear activities.
Iran now wants guarantees that the US will remove all the sanctions and won’t again unilaterally derail the new deal.
