SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Iran will not hold bilateral talks with the United States over the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and the world power, the country’s foreign ministry said on Monday.
World powers and Iran will gather in Vienna on Monday to try to salvage their 2015 nuclear deal, although hopes of a breakthrough appear slim.
Six rounds of indirect talks were held between April and June. Negotiations were halted as Iran was heading to hold a presidential election.
Iran’s new negotiating team is insisting that all U.S. sanctions imposed since 2017 be lifted, according to Reuters.
Spokesman of Iranian foreign ministry Saeed Khatibzadeh said in a press conference that Tehran would not hold bilateral talks with the U.S. delegation in Vienna.
Separately, deputy secretary general of EU’s foreign service Enrique Mora said he had met Chinese, Russian and Iranian negotiators on Sunday and that he would meet the European and U.S. teams on Monday before formal talks later in the day, according to Reuters.
Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett cautioned world powers on Monday to beware of what it described as Iranian “nuclear blackmail”.
“Today, Iran will be arriving at negotiations in Vienna with a clear goal: to end sanctions [on it] in exchange for almost nothing,” he said in a statement, Reuters reported.
Citing Iran’s hostility to Israel and internal crackdowns, Bennett said: “Iran doesn’t hide its intentions … Such a murderous regime should not be rewarded.”
In an interview with BBC Sounds on Saturday, U.S. special envoy to Iran Robert Malley said the United States and its partners were likely to exert pressure on Iran if it used talks as pretext to accelerate its nuclear programme.
“If Iran thinks it can use this time to build more leverage and then come back and say they want something better it simply won’t work. We and our partners won’t go for it,” Malley said.
