Raisi reiterates previous conditions: US must provide guarantees for permanent lifting of sanctions
In an interview on Thursday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi reiterated the Islamic Republic's conditions in the negotiations and called for guarantees for the "permanent removal" of US sanctions against Tehran with the aim of reviving the JCPOA agreement.
Mr. Raisi, who is in Uzbekistan to participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, made these remarks in an interview with Al Jazeera on Thursday night, September 14.
He said: "US sanctions must be lifted in order to achieve a nuclear deal, and there must be guarantees for their permanent removal."
The Iranian president also said that progress in nuclear negotiations between Iran and the West depends on resolving safeguards issues, i.e., the regulations of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
He said: "If we have credible guarantees and a permanent lifting of sanctions, not a temporary lifting, and if there is a lasting solution to the safeguards issues, then there is definitely a possibility of an agreement."
Without referring to the new statement by the Board of Governors against the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, Ebrahim Raisi, along with other officials, has raised the issue of "political and baseless accusations" against the Islamic Republic by the West and international organizations.
He has called for a resolution to permanently lift sanctions at a time when a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the US House of Representatives is set to introduce a bill that would make US sanctions against Iran permanent.
As Fox News reported, the bill to be introduced is called the "Secure Iran Sanctions Act" (SISA) and is designed to make the 1996 Iran Sanctions Act permanent "to protect the United States and its allies from the threat of a nuclear Iran."
After months of negotiations over the revival of the JCPOA agreement under the Raisi administration, the United States announced that Iran was not an "eager partner" in reviving the agreement.
Josep Borrell, the European Union's foreign policy chief, who had promised to reach an agreement in previous months, announced this week that negotiations to revive the JCPOA nuclear agreement and for Iran and the United States to return to the agreement have reached a deadlock.
This is while the Islamic Republic denies being in a state of impasse and has announced that it is ready to cooperate constructively with the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency to permanently close Iran's file in the organization.
While Iran and the United States are indirectly negotiating the JCPOA, Ebrahim Raisi added in an interview with Al Jazeera that "the time has not yet come for face-to-face negotiations with the United States."
He added: "Direct negotiations with the US over the nuclear deal are of no use, and the US must take confidence-building measures with the Iranian side."
Source: Radio Farda
