Tuesday, December 28, 2021
Iran wants to get rid of sanctions
Russia: “Undeniable progress” on nuclear talks
The talks in Vienna are intended to bring the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program back into motion. Tehran is calling for sanctions against the country to be stopped – the West, China and Russia want to prevent the country from developing nuclear weapons.
The talks about the controversial Iranian nuclear program are evidently moving. There is “undeniable progress,” wrote the Russian envoy for the Iran nuclear talks in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, on Twitter. “The lifting of the sanctions is actively discussed in an informal setting.”
Ulyanov takes part in the 8th round of the Vienna Talks, which are aimed at reviving the joint action plan. Germany, Great Britain, France, China and Russia are also involved in the meetings. The agreement aims to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The government in Tehran denies such plans.
The US is to be reintegrated into the agreement by lifting sanctions and Iran by fully implementing its nuclear commitments. The USA withdrew from the agreement in 2018 under the then President Donald Trump and is currently only indirectly participating in the negotiations.
Iran calls for the lifting of oil sanctions
In order to resume the nuclear talks in Vienna, Iran has called for the sanctions to be lifted with the aim of unhindered oil exports. “The most important thing for us is to get to a point where Iranian oil can be sold easily and freely,” said Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, according to the Iranian media, before the start of the eighth round of talks on Monday.
In contrast, the EU representative Enrique Mora declared that a limitation of Iran’s nuclear activities was also on the agenda. According to diplomats, this was the central theme of the seventh round, which ended ten days earlier. “It will be very difficult, it will be very tough,” said Mora of the new negotiations. “Difficult political decisions have to be made in Tehran as in Washington.”
Israel, which is not involved in the talks, has long threatened military action against Iran if it fails to prevent the country from building an atomic bomb. It is widely believed that Israel is the only country with an atomic bomb in the Middle East. Iran denies aiming to build nuclear weapons.