Tag: NUCLEAR DEAL

Categories
Arab News News World

Iran FM US must lift illegal sanctions after leaving nuke deal

Iran FM

The US must “altogether and effectively” lift the “illegal” sanctions it imposed against Iran after leaving the 2015 nuclear deal, the Foreign Ministry in Tehran said…reports Asian Lite News

“The US must in the first place accept, as the culprit in the current situation, to come back from the path that it has engaged in,” Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said at a press briefing on Monday.

Iran FM

Currently, the US is not a member of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and it cannot attribute its own statements to actual JCPOA members or make demands from Iran as a JCPOA member, Khatibzadeh added.

The US administration must give guarantees that it will not “mock the world and international law” by repeating former President Donald Trump’s behaviour of unilaterally abandoning the agreement in May 2018, and reimposed sanctions that Washington had committed to lift, he noted.

On Sunday, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in an interview on CNN that Iran has not shown willingness to fully comply with the JCPOA “despite us working closely with our allies and partners to create the negotiating circumstances for that happening”.

ALSO READ: Iran, Pakistan mull barter deal to overcome sanctions

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani will travel this week to France, Germany, the UK, and possibly Spain to discuss both regional and the JCPOA matters, after he contacts with Chinese, Russian, and EU officials before the resumption of the Vienna talks, Khatibzadeh said.

Some five months after the pause of the talks over the restoration of the nuclear deal, Iran and the European Union on November 3 announced to resume the negotiations on November 29.

Categories
-Top News China Europe

Xi, Putin open new chapter in nuclear ties

Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Brasilia, Brazil, Nov. 13, 2019. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei/IANS)

Speaking at the ceremony, Xi extended congratulations on the launch of the China-Russia nuclear energy cooperation project and paid high respect to the constructors from the two countries….reports Asian Lite News

Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin witnessed the ground-breaking ceremony of a bilateral nuclear energy cooperation project, Tianwan nuclear power plant and Xudapu nuclear power plant, via video link.

Xi arrived at the main venue of the Great Hall of the People at around 5 p.m. on Wednesday and waved to Putin, who had joined in from the main venue of the Kremlin, reports Xinhua news agency.

He Lifeng, vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and head of the National Development and Reform Commission, co-chaired the ceremony with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak.

Speaking at the ceremony, Xi extended congratulations on the launch of the China-Russia nuclear energy cooperation project and paid high respect to the constructors from the two countries.

Xi stressed that energy cooperation has always been the most important area of practical cooperation which generates the largest achievement and covers the widest scope between the two countries.

Noting that nuclear energy is the strategic priority for bilateral cooperation and a series of major projects have been completed and put into operation, Xi said the four nuclear power units that kicked off construction on Wednesday mark another major landmark in China-Russia nuclear energy cooperation.

ALSO READ: Queen’s cousin offers to sell access to Putin: Report

“Responding to climate change is a common task for all countries,” the Chinese leader said, adding that China and Russia should promote more low-carbon cooperation projects and play a constructive role in achieving global sustainable development goals.

For his part, Putin said that Russia has the confidence to work with China to smoothly and safely advance the project’s construction.

He said cooperation on the peaceful use of nuclear energy marks a significant part of the comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era between the two countries, and it is believed that the start of the four nuclear power units will also help achieve the goals to peak carbon dioxide emissions and achieve carbon neutrality.

It will also contribute to coping with global climate change and realising the sustainable development of humanity, Putin added.

Units 7 and 8 of the Tianwan nuclear power plant and units 3 and 4 of the Xudapu nuclear power plant are significant projects in a package cooperation deal on nuclear energy.

It was signed by the two heads of state in June 2018.

When completed and put into operation, the annual power generation will reach 37.6 billion kilowatt-hours, which is equivalent to reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 30.68 million tonnes per year.

The event on Wednesday is also the first online bilateral exchange at the head-of-state level between the two sides since the beginning of this year.

ALSO READ: Queen’s cousin offers to sell access to Putin: Report

Categories
-Top News Asia News USA

US seeks Iran’s political stand on N-deal

The US official noted that mutual return to compliance is possible only after Iran makes a political decision on JCPOA….reports Asian Lite News

A US State Department official said Washington and Tehran could achieve a mutual return to compliance with the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal in the coming weeks if the Islamic Republic makes a “political decision”.

The official said in a phone briefing on Thursday that the last three rounds of indirect talks between the US and Iran in Vienna “helped crystallise the choices”, but noting “nothing has been agreed” on how to revive the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), reports Xinhua news agency.

“If Iran makes the political decision that it genuinely wants to return to the JCPOA as the JCPOA was negotiated, then it could be done relatively quickly and implementation could be relatively swift,” the official told reporters.

“But we don’t know if Iran has made that decision. There’s still a lot of work to do in terms of agreeing on the sanctions, nuclear steps, but also the sequencing and the timetable for implementation of the steps that both sides are going to need to take,” he said.

The official suggested that it is possible for Washington and Tehran to achieve a mutual return to compliance in the next few weeks, while stressing “this is ultimately a matter of a political decision that needs to be made in Iran”.

The US delegation will return to Vienna this week for a new round of indirect talks with Iran.

Also read:Iranian FM apologises for leaked audio

“We just have to see whether the next round actually moves things forward, or whether we still are faced with unrealistic demands by Iran,” said the official.

Abbas Araqchi, Iran’s senior negotiator in Vienna talks, said last week that negotiating parties have reached “common ground in many cases”, but there were still differences.

President Joe Biden (www.instagram.comwhitehouse)

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday that the US knows that it has to return to law and assume its obligations pertaining to the nuclear deal.

The JCPOA was reached in 2015 between Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — the US, the UK, Russia, France, China, plus Germany) together with the European Union.

Tehran agreed to roll back parts of its nuclear weapons program in exchange for decreased economic sanctions.

Iran gradually stopped implementing parts of its commitments in May 2019, one year after the administration of former US President Donald Trump unilaterally abandoned the agreement and re-imposed sanctions on Tehran.

Also read:Iran ready for talks with Saudi Arabia

Categories
-Top News Asia News USA

No recent contact with US: Iran

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani

Iran claimed that US policy of maximum pressure, adopted by former President Donald Trump’s administration, has failed and the recession in Iran is over….reports Asian Lite News

Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has denied that there has been either a direct or indirect exchange of messages between Tehran and Washington over mutual disputes, a top official said here.

“Until now, Iran hasn’t received any message, either direct or indirect, from the US administration,” Xinhua news agency quoted Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh as saying.

The problem is that Washington is not willing to change the course, said Khatibzadeh, adding that the US has not taken steps to return to the 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Sanctions imposed by the former US government are still in place, and Iranian diplomats in New York City remain restricted in their movements, he noted.

US President Joe Biden

Khatibzadeh dismissed the continuation of pressure on Iran, saying that the US policy of maximum pressure, adopted by former President Donald Trump’s administration, has failed and the recession in Iran is over.

The US needs to stick to its own obligations, return to the JCPOA and lift sanctions that have been costly to the Islamic Republic, he said.

In response to the .S withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018 and the re-imposition of sanctions, Iran has suspended implementing parts of its obligations under the deal.

The incumbent US administration under President Joe Biden has said that if Iran returns to full compliance with the nuclear deal, Washington would do the same.

But Iran insisted its compliance would only take place once US sanctions were removed.

Also read:Iran’s vaccine enters final trial