TEHRAN (Realist English). Iran will return to Vienna only to finalize an agreement on the revival of the nuclear deal with world powers, Foreign Ministry spokesman Said Khatibzadeh said.
“We will not be going to Vienna for new negotiations but to finalize the nuclear agreement.” the representative of the Iranian Foreign Ministry explained.
Tehran said there were still outstanding issues that it was waiting on Washington to settle.
“At the moment, we do not yet have a definitive answer from Washington,”Khatibzadeh said. “If Washington answers the outstanding questions, we can go to Vienna as soon as possible.”
According to the representative of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Tehran does not intend to wait forever for a response from Washington, which uses the nuclear deal in its domestic political showdowns.
Khatibzadeh said an agreement is “largely achievable” if the U.S. fully realizes that Iran will not abandon its red lines and its demands.
Tehran is negotiating the restoration of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) directly with Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia and indirectly with the United States.
The delegations of Iran and the United States in Vienna do not communicate directly, but messages are transmitted through other participants and the European Union, which is the coordinator of the negotiations.
Almost a year of negotiations brought the parties closer to the resumption of the 2015 agreement. But the talks were halted in March after Russia demanded guarantees that Western sanctions imposed after the start of a special operation in the Ukraine would not harm Russian trade with Iran.
Later, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow received the necessary guarantees from Washington regarding trade with Iran.
