Iran urges Biden to ditch Trump strategy for deal on JCPOA

AFP

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on Thursday urged US President Joe Biden to lift economic sanctions and abandon his predecessor Donald Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign, which was launched in 2018 after Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal, in order to revive the accord.

"The most important thing is that the economic sanctions need to be lifted in an effective way. The most important thing is that the maximum pressure policy of the Trump era... needs to be removed," Amir-Abdollahian said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

"If you are talking about direct talks, then you have to prove to us that you're different from Trump," he said, according to AFP.

A day earlier, Robert Malley, the US point man on Iran, told US lawmakers that Biden's administration still supported the 2015 accord and was ready to lift sanctions if it secures an agreement.

But he claimed "excessive Iranian demands" made the odds of success lower.

Malley, who has led Washington’s delegation more than a year of indirect talks with Iran in Vienna, also noted that Trump's approach had demonstrably failed.

In Davos, Amir-Abdollahian said the US blacklisting of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) was a “secondary issue”, rejecting reports that it had stalled the Vienna talks.

“In fact, the IRGC being on the US blacklist of terrorist groups is a secondary issue that has been magnified by the pro-Israeli lobby and our main priority is the interests of the Iranian nation,” Iran’s foreign minister said.