TEHRAN, Jan 23 (NNN-IRNA) – Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, urged U.S. new administration, to “unconditionally” remove sanctions as the first step to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), stressing the necessity to limit the deal to nuclear issues.
“U.S. Biden administration should begin by unconditionally removing, with full effect, all sanctions imposed, re-imposed, or relabelled, since Trump took office. Then, Iran would reverse all the remedial measures it has taken, in the wake of Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal,” Zarif wrote in an op-ed, published by Foreign Affairs magazine, yesterday.
Zarif emphasised that, return to the table will be jeopardised, if Washington or its EU allies demand new terms for the deal, that was already carefully constructed through years of negotiations.
The foreign minister said, as part of the nuclear negotiations, Iran accepted five-year and eight-year limitations on defence and missile procurements, respectively, underlining that “the bargains we made to secure the deal cannot be undone; not now, not ever.”
He suggested, there is no time left to waste, for the U.S. new administration to re-join the 2015 nuclear deal, saying, “the legislation our parliament passed in Dec, 2020, clearly requires Iran to boost uranium enrichment and limit UN inspections, if sanctions are not removed by Feb, 2021.”
Iran launched 20-percent uranium enrichment process on Jan 4, as part of Iran’s Strategic Action Plan to Counter Sanctions, which was approved by parliament in Dec, 2020.
Former U.S. President, Donald Trump’s administration withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, and re-imposed sanctions against Iran, in an attempt to push the latter for renewed talks on the JCPOA and Iran’s ballistic missile programme.– NNN-IRNA
