The United Nations on Tuesday urged the United States to lift sanctions against Iran in accordance with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, while also urging Tehran to honour its pledges to curb its nuclear development.
“I appeal to the United States to lift or waive its sanctions as outlined in the plan and extend the waivers regarding the trade in oil with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” said Rosemary DiCarlo, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs.
“Also important is the extension of US waivers regarding certain civilian nuclear-related activities,” she told the UN Security Council, as negotiations resumed in Vienna on reviving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, as the nuclear is formally known.
Exchanging enriched uranium out of Iran for natural uranium also required waiver renewals, she said.
The agreement has been on life support since 2018, when former President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement, which gave Iran with sanctions relief in exchange for limits on its nuclear programme, forcing Tehran to backtrack on its pledges.
“Reverse the steps it has taken that are not consistent with its nuclear-related commitments under the plan,” DiCarlo said.
“The diplomatic door is firmly open for Iran to do a deal today,” Germany, the United Kingdom, and France, all signatories of the nuclear deal together with Russia and China, said in a joint statement.
“For the sake of the Iranian people and nation, Iran must choose between the collapse of the JCPOA and a fair and complete settlement,” the statement continued.
Majid Takht Ravanchi, Iran’s UN ambassador, claimed his country was not “imposing any preconditions or additional requirements” in order to resume its nuclear agreement commitments, and that all of the measures done since Washington pulled out were “reversible.”
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, his American counterpart, said the US was “willing to return to US compliance and to continue in compliance, so long as Iran does the same.”
Indirect talks between Iran and the US, primarily mediated by European powers, resumed in Vienna at the end of November in an attempt to resurrect the accord intended at stopping Tehran from getting nuclear weapons.
