Iran says the United States delaying nuclear talks

 

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman on Monday accused the United States of delaying the indirect talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal. Iran also said a prisoner swap with Washington was not related to the negotiations of the nuclear deal.

Nasser Kanaani revealed that a few issues remained to be resolved. He reportedly said at a news conference, “The Americans are procrastinating and there is inaction from the European sides. Europe and America need an agreement more than Iran.”

He also said that Iran wanted a sustainable deal that would preserve its legitimate rights. He further said that “the exchange of prisoners with Washington was a separate issue and that has nothing to do with the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal.”

In recent days, Washington and Tehran accused each other for different reasons. The US has repeatedly called for the release of several Iranian-Americans held in Iran on security charges. On the other hand, Iran has demanded several Iranians detained on charges linked to US sanctions be freed.

Iran also sought to obtain guarantees from the US that no future US president would back out from the deal if it were revived. However, the current US President, Joe Biden, cannot give such assurances to Iran because the deal is a political understanding rather than a legally binding treaty.

In 2018, former US President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the deal. Trump also reimposed swinging economic sanctions on Iran. The US unilateral exit in 2018 affected the deal.

 

 

This year, the talks for the revival of the deal were affected because of the Iranian demand that the US must remove the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) from the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organisations.

The negotiations about the nuclear deal began in April 2021 between Britain, China, France, Germany, Iran and Russia, with the US taking part indirectly.