Iran says resumption of Vienna talks on agenda. A spokesman said the issues pertaining to Iran, the EU, Russia and China in the talks have been resolved, noting that Enrique Mora, the EU’s coordinator for the negotiations, is pushing through what remains between Iran and the United States
The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Monday the resumption of the Vienna talks on the revival of a 2015 nuclear deal is on the agenda of Tehran and the other parties.
Saeed Khatibzadeh said at a weekly press conference that Iran and the European Union (EU) both maintain a protracted break fails to be in favor of the talks, and it would be appropriate to continue the negotiations as soon as possible.
He said the issues pertaining to Iran, the EU, Russia and China in the talks have been resolved, noting that Enrique Mora, the EU’s coordinator for the negotiations, is pushing through what remains between Iran and the United States.
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Khatibzadeh stressed that both Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian and EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell agree that a prolonged pause is not in the best interest of the talks.
However, no decision has been made yet on the venue and level of the meeting, and Vienna is waiting for Washington in making its political decision, he noted.
In 2015, Iran signed the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), with world powers, including the United States. However, former U.S. President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the agreement in May 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Iran, including freezing some of Iran’s assets abroad, prompting the latter to drop some of its nuclear commitments.
Since April 2021, several rounds of talks have been held in the Austrian capital between Iran and the remaining JCPOA parties to revive the deal.
NATO in Kabul
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said that the presence of the United States and NATO in Afghanistan has led to nothing but destruction and massacre in the Asian country, according to the presidency’s website.
Making the remarks in a meeting with the Latvian ambassador to Iran, Raisi said Iran is against any move that would lead the world toward unilateralism and war, such as “oppression and aggression against countries like Afghanistan and Palestine.”
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Iran has always supported the respect for national sovereignty and territorial integrity of countries, he added.
The Iranian president noted that the Ukraine crisis should not deprive Afghanistan, its people, the large population of Afghan refugees and their problems of sufficient international attention.
Arms to Russia
The Russian Embassy in Iran announced on Sunday that news about sending Iranian weapons to Russia is “fake,” Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) reported.
The embassy said in a statement availed to the Iranian media that “the information published in some media about sending Iranian weapons to Russia is false and does not correspond to reality.”
On April 12, British daily the Guardian reported that “Russia using weapons smuggled by Iran from Iraq against Ukraine.”
It said that “an Iranian-made Bavar 373 missile system, similar to the Russian S-300, has also been donated to Moscow by the authorities in Tehran, who also returned an S-300.”
The Iranian Embassy in the United Kingdom strongly objected to the Guardian’s news on arms shipments to Russia, saying that it is “an unrealistic and baseless storytelling.”
Sanctions on Russia
Khatibzadeh said that Iran does not recognize “unilateral sanctions” against Russia.
As a country targeted with unilateral sanctions for many years, Iran cannot recognize such similar sanctions and embargoes against other countries, Khatibzadeh said.
Stressing that Iran is not a proponent of war, he urged dialogues and diplomacy to end the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis.
The Iranian spokesman also said the United States invaded Iraq “on the basis of a lie” but no country sanctioned Washington.
“The United States cannot be the police, the judge, the jury, and everything in the world,” the spokesman noted.
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