Iran offers its final conclusion on EU’s plan to restart JCPOA: Iran says it has provided the European Union with its final conclusion on the talks aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and it is now up to the United States to demonstrate realism and flexibility if a final agreement is to be reached.
Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian stated earlier on Monday that Tehran would provide its final conclusion on the JCPOA revival talks by midnight local time.
“We will relay our final conclusion on the outstanding issues to the EU coordinator in writing by midnight today to see what feedback it will have and what reaction the US will show,” he said.
Iran’s top diplomat added that if the US shows a realistic and flexible reaction to Iran’s offer, “we would be at the point of agreement,” adding, “The American side has orally agreed to two proposals offered by Iran.”
“However, the US … wants to get more concessions [from Iran] and does not show flexibility. We must talk more and those parties that are trying to get our positions closer should [try to] get the Americans closer to our logical viewpoints,” Amir-Abdollahian said.
He added that it is the US turn to show flexibility due to its internal problems, saying that Washington’s oral acceptance of the two Iranian offers “must turn into a text and it must show flexibility on one issue.”
“The upcoming days are important days,” the Iranian foreign minister emphasized, saying Tehran is ready to reach a conclusion through a foreign ministerial meeting and announce the final agreement if its view is accepted.
“It is the country’s decision that if our red lines are respected, we will have no problem with reaching an agreement. One of the reasons for the prolongation [of the JCPOA revival talks] is that we don’t want to cross [our] red lines,” he pointed out.
Iran offers its final conclusion on EU’s plan to restart JCPOA
The United States is only concerned with its own problems “However, we do not want to finalize an agreement only to discover that our red lines have not been met. Something [good] must happen in the lives of the [Iranian] people [through any possible agreement].”
Four days of talks in Vienna between Iran and the five remaining JCPOA parties to salvage the deal culminated on August 8 with a modified text on the table.
After several months of deadlock, the Vienna talks resumed on August 4, with expert-level talks between Iran and the P4+1 group of countries.
While the European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell claimed the “final text” had been reached, Iran emphasized it has conveyed its “initial response and reservations” on the draft text.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Amir-Abdollahian said the country was determined “not to tie the Vienna negotiations to people’s livelihood, so we did not want to present an emotional agenda to the country; we wanted to show the real negotiations to the people.”
The JCPOA is the result of months of work by Iran’s Foreign Ministry, and it “may have many flaws as a document, but what concerns us is verification,” Amir-Abdollahian said.
In April of last year, Iran and the remaining JCPOA parties – Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany – began talks in Vienna, Austria. While the parties noted progress in multiple rounds of talks, Washington’s indecisiveness has prevented any significant breakthrough.
Last month, the talks were held in a different format in the Qatari capital of Doha, with Tehran and Washington holding indirect talks mediated by the European Union. Due to the US’s excessive demands, those talks also failed to produce any tangible results.
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raeisi stated on Friday that the Islamic Republic would not leave the negotiating table with the P4+1 group of countries over the revival of the JCPOA, nor would it tie its progress to the agreement.
“We will seriously address Iran’s economic and cultural circumstances regardless of the path the [JCPOA revival] negotiations take and what will happen in the future,” Raeisi said in the southeastern Iranian province of Kerman.
