Iran wants the United States to lift all sanctions and rejects any “step-by-step” easing.The Foreign Ministry said on Saturday, ahead of talks scheduled to be held in Vienna next week on reactivating the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.

The comments came when France urged Iran to be constructive in indirect talks with Washington in the Austrian capital, which will be part of wider negotiations.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said Tehran opposes any gradual easing of sanctions. ““There is no gradual plan under consideration,” Khatibzadeh told state-run Press TV. “The final policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran is to lift all US sanctions.”

Khatib Zadeh’s words came after that The US State Department Deputy Spokesman, Galina Porter, indicated that the meeting, scheduled for next week in the Austrian capital, Vienna, will address “the nuclear steps that Iran must take to comply again with the terms of the nuclear agreement.” an agreement. “.

“We do not expect specific sanctions, but we are saying with certainty that there are steps that the United States must take to ease sanctions in order to comply (by Iran). They are also open to discussion,” Porter said during a news conference.

Former President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the nuclear deal in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Iran, prompting Tehran to violate some of the nuclear restrictions in the agreement. Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, wants to reactivate the deal, but Washington and Tehran have differed over who should take the first step. The US State Department said the focus of the Vienna talks will be on “the nuclear steps Iran will need to take to return to compliance” with the nuclear deal.

Iran, China, Russia, France, Germany and Britain – all parties to the 2015 deal – held virtual talks on Friday to discuss a possible US return to the deal.

After a phone call with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, on Saturday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said in a statement that he called on Iran to avoid further violations of its nuclear obligations.

The Iranian authorities announced the withdrawal of their commitments regarding a number of points of agreement, which raised fears among the rest of the signatories that the agreement might collapse. However, Tehran has consistently argued that these steps could be reversed if the United States withdraws sanctions and reverts to the agreement.

Tehran also rejected the American demands and emphasized that Washington unilaterally withdrew from the agreement and imposed sanctions on it, and demanded the United States to return to the agreement before setting conditions. It also refused to include its missile program in the negotiations.

With information from Reuters and Europa Press

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