TEHRAN — In an interview with state TV on Saturday night, presidential chief of staff Gholam Hossein Esmaeili said that Iran entered the Vienna talks with a plan.

“We entered the negotiations with the will and plan,” Esmaeili said.

The talks to lift sanction on Iran were resumed in Vienna after they were suspended in June due to the presidential elections in Iran. It was the seventh round of talks since April.

Iran has been insisting that the talks must have tangible results. The Iranian diplomat have been insisting that sanctions must be lifted in a verifiable manner. 

“And by lifting sanctions, we seek the outcome of these negotiations,” Esmaeili remarked. 

He also said that people will be fully briefed about the negotiations.

“We were ready to continue the negotiations in Vienna, but our negotiating parties stated that they should raise the issues in their capitals,” the chief of staff added.

'Iran activating Asia-oriented economic diplomacy’ 

Elsewhere in his remarks, Esmaeili discussed how Iran has been activating its economic diplomacy by following an Asia-oriented foreign policy.

“The general policies of the government are to establish relations with neighboring countries and activate Asia-based economic diplomacy with neighbors,” he stressed.

He added that at the 15th ECO summit hosted by Turkmenistan on November 28, President Ebrahim Raisi sought to develop economic cooperation between Iran and ECO member states so that Iran can increase its cooperation with these states in the fields of energy environment, digital economy and optical fiber, etc.

During the president's recent visit to Ashgabat, Raisi had one-on-one meetings with his counterparts from Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Uzbekistan to discuss Iran’s cooperation in the field of transport and energy transfer between the member countries.

According to Esmaeili, the trilateral agreement between Iran, Turkmenistan and the Republic of Azerbaijan on gas swap could be considered a great success for the government.

The presidential chief of staff added, “Paying attention to neighborly economic diplomacy is one of the most important general policies of the government so that we can cooperate with ECO member states on many issues including security, transportation, energy transfer and other economic sectors.”