
Ali Bagheri Kani in an interview with Iranian state TV. (Photo credit: Fars News Agency).
Iranian Chief Negotiator at the Vienna talks, Ali Bagheri Kani, has said that, despite the unfair withdrawal by the US from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018, the deal can still be revisited in a constructive outcome if the US shows a genuine effort towards honoring their original commitments of the deal.
In a 14 December tweet, Bagheri Kani reminded the Americans that Iran “proposed […] ideas early [and] worked constructively [and] flexibly to narrow gaps.”
Kani also said that “diplomacy [was] a two-way street” and accused the US and their allies of participating in “their blame game habit.”
On 12 December, Bagheri Kani announced that Iran had not received any proposal from the US–EU side of the talks, despite the presence of two draft documents from the Iranian side.
Upon the conclusion of the sixth round of the Vienna talks, the first taking place in April under Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Iran tabled the two draft documents outlining terms of US sanctions removal on Iran alongside Iran’s return to nuclear commitments under the deal.
Iran also is preparing its third draft document that would verify sanctions removal, a process which Tehran has said repeatedly would take at least three months.
“We are ready for a fair and careful discussion, based on the principles of ‘guarantee’ and ‘verification,’” Bagheri Kani wrote in a 28 November Financial Times op-ed, adding that the negotiations must include “compensation for the violation of the deal, which includes the removal of all post-JCPOA sanctions.”
Despite claiming that Iran was “not serious” about reviving the JCPOA, the United States has said that it would not guarantee its removal of sanctions and has not given any promises that they wouldn’t repeat any other unilateral withdrawals from their end in the future.