Iran will not be pushed into a “bad or incomplete deal” as the Western parties to the US-ditched 2015 deal resort to yet another excuse to wrap up the Vienna talks in their favor, Marandi, also an advisor to the Iranian negotiating team in the Austrian capital, told press tv.
He added that the Europeans and the Americans are still “stonewalling” and making all sorts of excuses that are “not even relevant” to the negotiations.
He said the European parties to the negotiations are now talking about the crisis in Europe, namely the Ukraine-Russia conflict, which “has nothing to do with constructing or creating an airtight deal”.
“They (Iranians) can’t be pushed into a bad deal or an incomplete deal or a problematic deal simply because the Europeans say they have problems elsewhere and that they need to conclude the negotiations fast,” Marandi said.
“For Iranians that’s unacceptable,” he asserted.
Dismissing repeated Western calls for a quick conclusion of the talks with the aim of imposing their will on Iran, Marandi, a Tehran University professor, said they are now making other excuses instead.
“They are talking about the crisis in Europe,” he said. “They are talking about Ukraine and Russia which has nothing to do with the problem. So it just shows that the Europeans and the Americans are not honest, nor are they consistent in their argumentation.”
Marandi said that a deal is within reach even though western countries have been dragging their feet for months.
“The Iranians have been able to push forward and to resolve most of the issues, but there are a few remaining issues that are key in order for a deal to be agreed upon,” he explained.
He made clear that Iran wants “an airtight deal” bereft of any loopholes that the Americans and the Europeans would exploit “as they’ve done so many times before.”
“What they want is to pressure Iran into accepting something that is not acceptable. They want Iran to accept a deal that has loopholes, and those loopholes will come back to haunt Iran, and the Iranians know this. We’ve been there before,” he added.
The Iranian advisor reiterated that a deal is at hand and hinges on the other parties’ resolve.
“All they have to do – the Europeans and the Americans – is to stop stonewalling and to accept Iran’s legitimate concerns,” he stated.
Marandi said the remaining issues are very important for Iran “because they could become Iran’s Achilles’ heel” and that’s unacceptable for the Iranian government and people.
He further explained, “The Europeans are not in a good place. They need Iranian oil now. They need Iranian energy to calm down the markets. So it’s for their own good to [finish] the negotiations as soon as possible.”
Iran and the remaining parties to the JCPOA -- Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China -- started talks in the Austrian capital of Vienna last April on the assumption that the US, under the Joe Biden administration, is willing to repeal the so-called maximum pressure policy.
Tehran says it will not settle for anything less than the removal of all US sanctions in a verifiable manner. It also wants guarantees that Washington would not abandon the agreement again.
The eighth round of talks between Tehran and the G4+1 group of countries continues in Vienna on the JCPOA revival and removal of sanctions.
Last month, the Iranian legislators issued a statement, calling on the administration of President Seyed Ebrahim Rayeesi to adhere to Iran’s red lines as the talks inched forward in Vienna.
They said the US government and its European allies had shown that they were not bound by any agreement over the past few years, so Iran was obliged to learn from the experience and set clear red lines.
The red lines, according to the lawmakers, include guarantees by the United States and the three European signatories of the JCPOA that they would not abandon a potential agreement again and seek recourse to “the snapback mechanism”, which would reinstate the UN Security Council’s sanctions against Iran. They also asserted that all sanctions imposed under “false excuses” had to be removed.
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