TEHRAN – A senior Iranian lawmaker has said that Iran will by no means make a deal with the West without getting U.S. sanctions on Iran lifted. 

The lawmaker, Ebrahim Azizi, who is the deputy chairman of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of the Iranian parliament, said the Iranian negotiating team should seek to get a verifiable sanctions relief and pursue guarantees that the other side won’t renege on its commitment in case a deal was made. 

“News coming from Vienna show that progress has been made, however, we are waiting for [Iran’s chief negotiator Ali] Bagheri to return to the country and brief the Majlis (parliament) and national security committee on the negotiations,” Azizi told the Islamic Consultative Assembly News Agency (ICANA).

Azizi said that Iran has set frameworks for the negotiating team which are in line with specific strategies and national interests.

He added that the Iranian team is attending the negotiations based on the specified framework. “And we expect that the other side take action in this regard, otherwise we will not accept any deal,” he pointed out.

“Without removal of sanctions and a concrete action, we never reach any agreement with the West, because the U.S. and Europe were unfaithful time and again and showed that they are non-compliant with their commitments,” the lawmaker said.

He said that the West should know that negotiating with the “strong and powerful Iran” has well-defined principles and a specified framework and that Iran will never give up on its clearcut position.

“We should insist on our principles so that the other side knows that they are facing a different team from the previous government which with all their might stand against Western extravagance,” he pointed out.

Earlier, Mahmoud Abbaszadeh Meshkini, the spokesman for the parliamentary committee, said Iran is seeking to make a win-win deal at the Vienna talks aimed at removing U.S. sanctions on Iran.

He noted that removing all U.S. sanctions on Iran is a priority for Tehran.

“The Islamic Republic is looking for a win-win agreement, and it looks like we will reach a relatively good agreement with the parties by the end of this year,” he said in an interview with the Islamic Consultative Assembly News Agency (ICANA), referring to the Iranian calendar year ending on March 20.

He said, “The Americans want to maintain the structure of sanctions, but the Islamic Republic knows their purpose, so it is not affected by their pressure. The Americans and the Westerners are conveying concerns to us and tending to impose a bad deal on Iran, meaning that they will benefit from the deal with us without benefiting Iran.”

According to Meshkini, the priority of the Islamic Republic of Iran is the lifting of all sanctions, but the priority of the Americans is to limit Iran's nuclear technology and shut down Iran's nuclear industries.

He noted, “We negotiate well because we have the experience of previous rounds of negotiations and the JCPOA is a valuable experience for us. In the past, we could not include the necessary guarantees in the JCPOA, and the United States withdrew from the agreement at no cost, so this experience is very valuable to us.”

The lawmaker added, “The Islamic Republic has gone through maximum sanctions. Of course, the people were under a lot of livelihood pressures, and this passage was not without cost, but the Americans imposed economic pressures on the people with the aim of imposing further cost. Sanctions have been almost neutralized and our oil sales are increasing daily.”

Meshkini added, “The Islamic Republic of Iran has found good regional and trans-regional partners during this period, and according to the 25-year agreement between Iran and China, it is planned to invest about $400-500 billion in the country. China and Russia also helped us a lot in the negotiations. They are not like the previous periods.”