Iran: Good agreement possible if West shows goodwill
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian says reaching a good agreement is possible in the ongoing sanctions removal talks in Vienna, if the Western side possesses the required goodwill.
The talks are on the right track, the top diplomat said, speaking to his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Saturday.
“Iran possesses the required will for reaching a good agreement,” he added.
“We can [therefore] reach a good agreement if the Western side is likewise in possession of such a good faith and will,” Amir-Abdollahian noted.
The remarks concerned the talks in Vienna that are examining the prospect of the removal of the United States’ inhumane sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
The US reimposed the sanctions in 2018 after illegally and unilaterally leaving the 2015 agreement with Iran and others.
Earlier, Iran's top negotiator in the talks, Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Baqeri-Kani also said participants in the talks were heading forward and making progress.
The two sides were resolving outstanding issues and differences among the negotiating parties were narrowing, he noted.
Speaking on Friday, France’s foreign minister struck a positive tone concerning the talks, saying progress had been made in the negotiations.
Iran and the P4+1 group of countries resumed talks in Vienna on Monday after the parties took a three-day break for the New Year. The US is not allowed to directly attend the talks due to its pullout in 2018 from the landmark deal with Iran.
The eighth round of the Vienna talks began on December 27 with a focus on the removal of all US sanctions. The US is not allowed to directly attend the talks due to its pullout in 2018 from the landmark deal with Iran.
During the previous round of the talks, the first under Iran’s new President Ebrahim Raeisi, Iran presented new proposals at the negotiating table to help the talks move forward and later criticized the European signatories of the JCPOA for failing to follow suit and remaining passive.
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