No more nuclear talks for sake of talks

We still remember former President Hassan Rouhani government’s policy of talks during the nuclear issue of Iran which took years and led to the JCPOA deal in 2015 which was gone in just a second and with a signature of the former U.S. President Donald Trump and the U.S. exit of the deal and reimposition of sanctions.

Iran has suffered from this unfair deal which gave this authority to the U.S. or big powers to leave the agreement without paying its price and it was Iran which paid the price for this naïve and trust on the West.

Now the order of the play has changed and this time the Islamic Republic of Iran under the revolutionary President Seyed Ebrahim Raisi’s government will not let it happen again and this time there will not be talks for the sake of entertain the nation and the world.

As the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei has said Iran has awakened after the 2015 nuclear deal and this time it will not accept the deal easily unless the country really benefits it.

On Thursday Iran’s new foreign minister once again reiterated the Islamic Republic of Iran’s new policy on talks and said welcomes negotiations on the revival of the nuclear deal it snatched with world powers in 2015, but will not engage in talks just for the sake of talks.

Amir-Abdollahian made the remarks in a phone call with his Austrian counterpart, Alexander Schallenberg, during which the two sides discussed matters of mutual interest to both countries as well as ways to bolster bilateral relations.

During the conversation, Iran’s top diplomat noted that although the Islamic Republic in essence welcomes negotiations on the nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), it believes that “engaging in negotiations for the sake of negotiations is not acceptable.”

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has kept its end of the bargain in maintaining the JCPOA through its strategic patience in the face of the US withdrawal and the inaction of the European side, and now it’s about time for the other JCPOA parties to cooperate and honor their commitments in a real and practical manner,” Iran’s foreign minister said.

Iran and world powers, including the US, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany, struck the JCPOA on July 14, 2015. Under the accord, Iran agreed to scale back some of its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.

However, the U.S., under former President Trump, unilaterally withdrew from the deal and reinstated crippling sanctions on the Islamic Republic, although the country had been fully compliant with the deal.

In early April, Iran and the remaining parties to the JCPOA began to hold talks in Vienna, Austria, after the Joe Biden administration voiced willingness to rejoin the nuclear agreement, three years after Trump’s withdrawal.

The negotiations were paused soon after the victory of Ebrahim Raeisi in Iran’s June 18 presidential election.

In a separate phone conversation on Thursday, Amir-Abdollahian told his German counterpart Heiko Maas that any negotiations on the revival of the nuclear accord must lead to the removal of the illegal sanctions imposed on the country.

“We agree on the essence of Vienna talks, but we [only] accept those negotiations that would lead to the removal of the [U.S.] sanctions and meet the inalienable rights of Iran,” he said.

The top Iranian diplomat advised the three European parties to the JCPOA, Germany, the UK and France, also known as E3, to change course with regard to the implementation of the deal and end their inaction toward their JCPOA obligations.

This firm stance from Iran’s foreign minister shows that the order of the play has changed and Iran is not in a weak position any longer and the new government is not ready to give in to the West’s pressure and it will not give in to the loss-win game of the West.

The Islamic Republic of Iran welcomes talks on the JCPOA but it is not ready to say “yes” to anything that the U.S. and allies demand. The country is ready to continue the talks just for the sake of getting a tangible result than entertaining the media and the nation because it has learned from the past negotiations that if it just want to prolong the talks, enemies of the country will benefit it.

So the West is better to come to its sense by getting fair stance in talks and to avoid its excessive demands because Rais is not Rouhani and time and condition now has totally changed.

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