President of Iran Hassan Rouhani speaks the crowd during his visit in Semnan, Iran on December 4, 2018.
IRANIAN PRESIDENCY / HANDOUT | Anadolu Agency | Getty Portraits
Iran is ready to hold talks with the United States if Washington lifts sanctions and returns to the 2015 atomic deal it quit last year, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in a televised speech on Sunday.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s charge says it is open to negotiations with Iran on a more far-reaching agreement on nuclear and security issues.
But Iran has repaid any talks conditional on first being able to export as much oil as it did before the United States withdrew from the atomic pact with world powers in May 2018.
“We have always believed in talks … if they lift sanctions, end the take advantage ofed economic pressure and return to the deal, we are ready to hold talks with America today, right now and anywhere,” Rouhani articulate in his Sunday speech.
Confrontations between Washington and Tehran have escalated, culminating in an aborted plan for U.S. air strikes on Iran abide month after Tehran downed a U.S. drone. Trump called off the retaliatory U.S. air strike at the last minute.
Calling for colloquy among all to resume, France, Britain and Germany — parties to the 2015 pact — said on Sunday they were practice by the escalation of tensions in the Gulf region and the risk the nuclear deal might fall apart.
“We believe that the sometimes has come to act responsibly and to look for ways to stop the escalation of tension and resume dialogue,” they said in a joint announcement that was released by the French president’s office.
Despite calling for talks with Iranian leaders, Trump indicated on Wednesday that U.S. sanctions on Iran would soon be increased “substantially”.
Existing U.S. sanctions have targeted Iran’s major foreign revenue stream from crude oil exports, which Trump in May moved to try to eliminate entirely.
In reaction, Tehran said it would escalade back its commitments under the deal, under which it had agreed to curb its nuclear program in return for relief from U.S. and other budgetary sanctions that had crippled its economy.
‘Possible consequences’
Defying a warning by the European parties to the pact to continue its loud compliance, Tehran has amassed more low-enriched uranium than permitted and has started to enrich uranium above the 3.67% permitted by the settlement.
“The risks are such that it is necessary for all stakeholders to pause, and consider the possible consequences of their actions,” France, Britain and Germany, which bear been trying to salvage the pact by shielding Tehran’s economy from sanctions, said in their statement.
Iranian pontifical rulers have said that Tehran will further decrease its commitments if Europeans fail to fulfill their vows to guarantee Iran’s interests under the deal.
The nuclear deal aimed to extend the amount of time it would theoretically be Iran to produce enough fissile material for an atomic bomb — so-called breakout time — from several months to a minutest of one year until 2025.
Iran denies ever having considered developing atomic weapons.
There have been two signs in the history week that the United States may be signaling greater openness to diplomacy.
U.S. officials told Reuters on Thursday that Washington had certain for now not to sanction Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif despite Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s June 24 assertion he would be blacklisted that week.
On Sunday, U.S. officials said they had given Zarif a U.S. visa to attend a U.N. convention this week. Iran’s mission to the United Nations said he had arrived in New York.
The State Department did not respond to a petition for comment on why Zarif had not been blacklisted, why he had been granted a visa and whether U.S. officials might use his New York visit to hold direct or indirect contacts.