Iran not to leave nuclear negotiation table, seeks "strong" agreement: FM

TEHRAN, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said that the Islamic republic will not leave the negotiation table aimed at the revival of the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, the official IRNA news agency reported on Friday.

"We are serious about achieving an agreement, and we will not hesitate to reach a good, strong, and stable deal. We will continue our efforts, and we will not leave the negotiating table," Amir-Abdollahian told IRNA.

"It is the American side that must show now whether it has necessary courage to make a decision on this issue or not," he was quoted as saying.

The Iranian diplomat pointed to the latest EU-drafted proposal to settle differences between Iran and the United States concerning the restoration of the nuclear pact, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and said that the U.S. response had some "ambiguities."

"After we received the opinions of the American side, we saw that in some issues that are important and fundamental for us, the American side had made the text interpretable and created some ambiguities," he said, adding that one of the dimensions of "strengthening" the text is "clarification" so that the readers can have a single understanding of that text.

Besides, more important for Iran is the implementation of the commitments under a possible agreement, he stressed.

Iran signed the JCPOA with world powers in July 2015, agreeing to curb its nuclear program in return for removing sanctions on the country. However, former U.S. President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the agreement and reimposed unilateral sanctions on Tehran, prompting the latter to drop some of its commitments under the pact.

The talks on the JCPOA's revival began in April 2021 in Vienna but were suspended in March this year because of political differences between Tehran and Washington. The latest round of the nuclear talks was held in the Austrian capital in early August after a five-month hiatus.

On Aug. 8, the European Union put forward its final text of the draft decision on reviving the JCPOA. Iran and the United States later indirectly exchanged views on the proposal in a process that has so far failed to produce any favorable outcome.