Deputy FMs of Iran, France, Germany, Britain to meet on bilateral, nuclear issues

Tehran, Nov 25 Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei has said that Deputy Foreign Ministers of Iran, France, Germany, and Britain will meet on Friday for talks on bilateral as well as Tehran's nuclear issue, among other topics.

He made the remarks on Sunday in a statement released by the Ministry while pointing to Iran's principled policy based on interaction and cooperation with other countries, Xinhua news agency reported.

Baghaei stressed that such interaction and cooperation should be based on "dignity, prudence, and expediency," noting that the upcoming talks would be in continuation of the country's negotiations with them held on the sidelines of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York late September.

He said a series of regional and international issues, including those of Palestine and Lebanon, in addition to the nuclear issue, would be discussed during the upcoming negotiations, the planning for which had been done in New York in the previous round.

Iran signed the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), with world powers in July 2015, accepting restrictions on its nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions by the West. However, the US withdrew from the agreement in May 2018, reinstating sanctions and prompting Iran to scale back some of its nuclear commitments.

The talks on the revival of the JCPOA began in April 2021 in Vienna, Austria.

Despite several rounds of talks, no significant breakthrough has been achieved since the end of the last round in August 2022.

On Thursday, the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) passed a resolution against Iran, which orders the country to improve cooperation with the agency urgently and requests a "comprehensive" report to press Iran into fresh nuclear talks.

Iran on Friday announced the activation of a "substantial" number of new "advanced" centrifuges in response to the IAEA board's "unjustifiable" resolution.

Source: IANS