Iran: Agreement within reach if US 'in possession of serious resolve'

“I believe that if the American side is in possession of serious resolve and acts realistically, an agreement is within reach at this stage and at this round of the negotiations,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Tuesday.

The United States left the deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in 2018. It then returned the sanctions that the accord had lifted.

Since last year, Vienna has been hosting many rounds of talks among the JCPOA’s remaining parties to examine the prospect of the deal’s revival.

Amir-Abdollahian’s remarks came on the same day as the parties gathered in the Qatari capital of Doha to pick up where they left in the Austrian capital.

The European Union is tasked with coordinating indirect negotiations between Iran and the US during the process. Iran does not sit down with the US as it is no longer a party to the deal.

“We are serious and would, under no circumstances, cross our redlines,” which have been drawn in line with the objective of “meeting the country’s national interests to the maximum,” the foreign minister asserted.

“The agenda is clear,” he said, reiterating that Iran was prepared for the return of all the concerned parties to the 2015 agreement “if this round of the talks is accompanied with realism on the part of the US and the three European states.”

Since the United States’ departure from the JCPOA, the UK, France, and Germany—the US’s allies in the deal—have been cooperating with Washington’s sanction regime against Iran as closely as possible.