MP says new round of talks should ensure national interests

November 13, 2021 - 21:23

TEHRAN - The deputy chairman of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee has stressed that the Vienna talks which will start in late November with the purpose of lifting sanction on Iran should ensure the country’s interests.

"If the negotiations serve our interests, we will pursue them seriously, and if the interests of the Iranian people are not served, there is no reason to pursue attritional negotiations," Abbas Moqtadaei said, Fars reported on Saturday.

Moqtadaei, the representative of the Isfahan constituency in the Parliament, said, "Iran's negotiations with the JCPOA parties are simple on the one hand and complex on the other, and this simplicity and complexity must be considered at the same time."

The MP added: "The simplicity of the negotiations is due to the fact that the Islamic Republic of Iran fully fulfilled its obligations based on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), but the Western parties, especially the Americans, did not fulfill the obligations they had accepted and harmed Iran's interests by not adhering to their commitments."

The parliamentarian pointed out: "The Islamic Republic of Iran has announced that it is pursuing negotiations in which the interests of the Iranian people are ensured. The law passed by the Majlis (Parliament) called ‘Strategic Action to Lift Sanctions and Protect the Interests of the Iranian People’ also emphasizes the same point, and now we must answer the question of whether to accept breaking the obligations or not?"

On the recent measures by the IRGC in the face of the U.S. piracy in the Sea of Oman, the MP said: "The recent actions of the Islamic Republic of Iran in defending the interests of the Iranian people at sea, air and land show that we can defend our interests, so we look at negotiations as a way to achieve our interests, not a means to make concessions to an extravagant enemy."

Moqtadaei was referring to a recent act of piracy by a foreign tanker which was stealing the Iranian oil in the Sea of Oman with the help of American warships.

The new Iranian negotiator Ali Bagheri has said the nuclear deal (JCPOA) has already been concluded and the only thing that the West, especially the U.S. must do, is to lift illegal sanctions on Iran.

On the need to verify a possible lifting of anti-Iran sanctions based on the JCPOA, the MP said: "Currently, there is a wall of distrust and it is the Western side that must take action to break this wall. The Islamic Republic of Iran is not looking for an excuse or making concessions, but it is seeking practical achievement from the heart of the negotiations to ensure the interests of the Iranian people."

The parliamentarian emphasized that the Westerners must accept that they have harmed the interests of Iran by breaching the 2015 nuclear deal.

And a verification of the lifting of sanctions means that the West must recognize Iran's financial and monetary exchanges and take practical steps to streamline it, he insisted.

Moqtadaei concluded: "In this regard, Iran's blocked money should be exchanged in different countries, because we currently have tens of billions of dollars of blocked money in different countries that cannot be accessed due to anti-Iran sanctions. Therefore, in the first step, these assets must be returned to the Iranian nation."

 Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Thursday that the United States needs to revise its policy of draconian sanctions against Iran so as to help revitalize the 2015 nuclear agreement.

“The utmost must be done so that the negotiations ensure the restoration of what’s known as the ‘factory settings’ of the JCPOA,” Ryabkov said, according to TASS.

“Political will is now required. From the U.S. side, it is important to prove and demonstrate in practice that the sanctions policy, which has been carried out over the recent years is being reviewed and the Iranian side is given the opportunity to reap those economic advantages that are included in the package of agreements that lies at the heart of the JCPOA,” the Russian diplomat said.

On Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh once again spelled out what the U.S. must do to restore the deal.

The U.S. must agree to return from the path it took as the party to blame for the current situation.

Khatibzadeh explained that the U.S. then needs to remove all the cruel and illegal sanctions it imposed on Iran after its unilateral withdrawal from the nuclear deal “in one go and in an effective way.”

Then the U.S. has to guarantee that “no administration in the United States would belittle the world and international law” again by repeating the withdrawal from the JCPOA, he added.