Iran lawmakers seek guarantees for new nuke deal

Tehran, Iran | Xinhua | Iranian parliament members said in a statement on Sunday that the government should not strike a nuclear deal with the Western countries unless they guarantee not to pull out of it, official news agency IRNA reported.

The statement, signed by 250 lawmakers, addressed to President Ebrahim Raisi and read out in an open session of the parliament, called on the Iranian president and negotiating team to take people’s interests as the red line in the Vienna talks and refrain from committing themselves to any agreement with Western “oath breakers” without receiving guarantees.

The statement said Iran’s negotiations on the removal of the sanctions have reached a critical and sensitive stage, hailing the active diplomacy pursued by Raisi and the country’s negotiating team to the Vienna talks.

Over the past eight years, the United States, France, Britain, and Germany have proved that they do not fulfill any of their commitments and would use any possible means to deal blows to the Iranian people’s interests despite all international regulations, it added.

“We are required to learn our lessons from the past experience,” the statement noted.

The lawmakers said the West must guarantee that they will not pull out of the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in the future and will not resort to triggering the so-called snapback mechanism to reimpose Iran sanctions.

The West must also give a commitment to lift the sanctions imposed against Iran, they added.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the JCPOA in May 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Iran, which prompted the latter to drop some of its nuclear commitments one year later and advance its halted nuclear program.

Since April 2021, eight rounds of talks have been held in Vienna between Iran and the remaining parties, namely Britain, China, France, Russia plus Germany, with the United States indirectly involved in the talks, to revive the landmark deal. ■