TEHRAN— "Nullifying sanctions as our main approach is to deal with the problems raised by sanctions", Spokesman for Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission said in an interview with Mehr News Agency.

He went on to say, "We must be able to strengthen national products by relying on our own domestic capacities."

"We must first focus on relations with our neighbors and then strengthen our relations with Asian countries and emerging economies", he stressed.

Principled policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran toward nuclear negotiations will never change by the change of governments, Abolfazl Amouei said.

Saying that the complete lifting of sanctions is a logical and fundamental demand, he added that Iran's economic benefit in the nuclear deal will be achieved only with the complete lifting of sanctions.

It was the Americans who illegally withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, Amouei said, adding that today, they acknowledge that their maximum pressure policy has failed and must return to the nuclear deal.

In fact, with passing a law on Strategic Action Plan to Lift Sanctions and Protect Iranian Nation’s Interests, Iran's nuclear program was strengthened and the other parties to JCPOA concluded that the policy of maximum pressure was a failed policy, he explained.

The JCPOA was agreed on in July 2015 between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council along with Germany, known as the P5+1. The agreement was approved by the Supreme National Security Council, the Islamic Consultative Assembly and finally by the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei.

Iran strictly complied with the nuclear deal. However, this did not prevent the Trump administration from quitting it. In May 2018, former U.S. President Donald Trump announced the unilateral withdrawal of the U.S. from the JCPOA, setting off a series of confrontations with Iran.

After quitting the JCPOA the Trump administration started imposing sweeping economic sanctions on Iran. Trump piled up sanctions on Iran in a bid to force Iran into making more concessions to the U.S. within the framework of a new nuclear deal. Trump, however, failed to get his deal, bequeathing his successor a litany of unresolved issues with Iran.

The Biden administration has said it wants to open a new chapter with Iran and change tack, though it is yet to make any move to break with the Trump legacy on Iran.

Since April, diplomats from the remaining parties to the JCPOA and the U.S. have held six rounds of talks in a bid to revive the deal. They made significant progress but failed to get Iran and the U.S. back to full compliance with the nuclear deal.

SA/PA