Jul 30, 2021 16:11 UTC
  • Vienna talks aim to restore original JCPOA; nothing more, nothing less: Russia

Russia’s lead negotiator at the Vienna talks on the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran says the ongoing negotiations aim to restore the agreement in its original form, nothing more and nothing less.

Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna, made the remarks in a tweet on Friday, asserting earlier statement by his Iranian counterpart Kazem Gharibabadi, who said Tehran would not allow the Vienna talks to feature irrelevant issues.

In an interview published on Ayatollah Khamenei’s official website, Khamenei.ir, on Wednesday, the Iranian permanent ambassador to Vienna-based international organizations said the European parties to the deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), “still consider the nuclear agreement to be a bridge enabling their interference in irrelevant issues such as Iran’s missile work and its regional affairs.”

“The purpose they seek through this is to start addressing these [irrelevant] issues [on various occasions] and consider them to be indivisible parts of the nuclear deal, and [therefore] lay the groundwork for their interference in these areas,” Gharibabadi wrote.

He reflected on a warning issued by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on Wednesday, during the Leader’s last meeting with the outgoing Iranian administration’s officials, about the West’s intention to use the JCPOA to enable interference in the Iranian affairs.

During the meeting, the Leader cited the administration’s experience of dealing with the West on the issue of the nuclear agreement as an important case in point that had clearly shown “trust in the West does not work and will not work [in the future either].”

In his tweet, Ulyanov urged all the parties to the JCPOA not to deviate from the main objective of the Vienna talks and to stop efforts to add something new to the deal.

“Indeed, the agreed goal of the #ViennaTalks is to restore the original #JCPOA. Nothing more and nothing less. ALL participants should take care of not creating - even non-intentionally - impression that they deviate from this common goal and try to add something new to the deal,” the senior Russian diplomat tweeted.

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