Marandi: Doha talks on revival of Iran deal didn’t fail, to go on

“There was never any expectation that these negotiations would culminate in an agreement over a couple of days,” Mohammad Marandi made the comments in an interview with the Lebanon-based Al Mayadeen television channel on Wednesday.

Earlier this week, Iran and the US held two days of indirect negotiations coordinated by the European Union in Doha.

European Union envoy Enrique Mora said afterwards that the talks had “not yet” made the progress the EU hoped for, but that work would continue to facilitate the restoration of the Iran deal.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry also said, “Iran presented views and practical proposals on the remaining issues, and the other side also submitted its observations,” and that the relevant parties would remain in contact.

The US, however, accused Iran of being the source of the stalemate and claimed Tehran had raised issues unrelated to the nuclear deal in Doha.

Marandi added that Tehran did not take US officials’ media statements seriously.

He reaffirmed Iran’s conditions for a revitalization of the nuclear deal, saying the US must lift its anti-Iran sanctions and provide guarantees that “history is not repeated,” referring to Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the multi-sided deal in 2018.

“The Americans will have to make some decisions; they have already moved and changed their position in the past few months,” Marandi said. “We don’t know what will happen in Washington.”

“Biden is under a lot of pressure at home … and so are the Europeans because of the energy crisis,” Marandi stated.

He said the Europeans were today “more interested” in doing business with Iran because they were in need of its oil due to the war in Ukraine and the consequent sanctions they have imposed on Russia.