Araghchi: Talks with US hinges on Washington’s will, not mediators
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Tuesday that resumption of nuclear talks with the United States does not hinge on mediators but on Washington’s will to reach a deal with Tehran.
Araghchi said that several regional countries including Qatar are interested in playing a positive role in the negotiations.
“But for the start of the negotiations, the question is not the mediator. The important point is the will of the other side; that they accept that, an agreement can be reached based on mutual interests and without threats, which also includes the interests of both sides,” Araghchi told reporters at the opening of the second Iran-Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) conference in Tehran.
Iran and the US began talks in April to resolve a decades-old dispute over nuclear program and held five rounds of talks mediated by Oman. But two days before the sixth round of negotiations scheduled for June 15, Israel launched an unprovoked aggression against Iran, which derailed the talks.
The US later joined the onslaught on June 22 and targeted Iran’s three nuclear facilities in violation of the United Nations Charter and the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The US had been pressuring Iran to accept zero uranium enrichment. But Iran has repeatedly said that it will not abandon enrichment in its facilities but is ready to decrease the level of enrichment at the 3.75% purity, which has been allowed in the 2015 nuclear agreement from which the US unilaterally withdrew and left the future of the nuclear deal in limbo.