Speaking in his weekly press conference, Saeed Khatibzadeh said that the talks between Iran and the P4+1 in the Austrian capital have seen good progress in four areas where there are documents to be discussed.
In some documents the disagreements and parentheses have been reduced, Khatibzadeh added.
Many ideas raised by Iran about assurances were put into words, the spokesman said, describing the progress as “great success”.
He went on to say that all participants in the talks have agreed that another US withdrawal from a possible deal, like what happened in 2018 when Washington left the JCPOA, shouldn’t recur.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is in Vienna to reach a sustainable, reliable deal and that’s why securing assurances is so important, Khatibzadeh noted.
Asked about the statements made by the US envoy for Iran Robert Malley who had set the release of dual nationals imprisoned in Iran as a precondition for any possible deal with Tehran, the spokesman made it clear that Iran has never accepted a precondition for the talks which are “complicated enough and shouldn’t be made more complicated”.
On prisoner swap between Iran and the US, Khatibzadeh said that this was a different path from the talks in Vienna and if Washington abided by the agreements previously reached, the issue could be solved in the shortest time possible.
An interim deal in Vienna was never on the agenda, he noted, adding that Iran was looking for a sustainable, reliable deal and it would accept nothing less.
The quality of the deal is important for us, nothing less, nothing more, Khatibzadeh underlined, adding that he hoped Washington has noticed the necessity for such a deal.
He also responded to Malley’s another statement that American companies should enter Iran’s market, saying that the JCPOA shows that all the American companies have been sanction by their own government and it they want to have a presence in Iran, Washington should remove secondary and primary sanctions against Iran, as this is a one-sided decision.
The US that has taken hostage Iranian nationals based on false accusation that they have evaded illegal extraterritorial sanctions against the Iranian nation and some of them are kept under inhumane conditions, Khatibzadeh criticized.
On the contrary, he added, those detained in Iran have been charged by the Judiciary and they have committed crimes that have passed proceedings in a competent court.
He singled out France, Germany, the UK and the US as countries that are specifically involved in selling weapons to those waging war in Yemen.
9416**9417
Follow us on Twitter @IrnaEnglish