French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed there is “a window of opportunity” now for Vienna talks on reviving the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), the French presidency said in a statement on Monday, according to a report by the Associated Press.
The three leaders, who spoke via videoconference on Monday, agreed on the need to move negotiations forward in order to get a deal "as soon as possible" and avoid the risk of the alleged nuclear proliferation, a French top official said.
The AP quoted France and Germany as saying that the three leaders also talked about relations between the European Union and China. They discussed international trade, climate protection and biodiversity, and cooperation in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
Iran has already held six rounds of talks with JCPOA participants known as the P4+1 with the aim of salvaging the JCPOA in the Austrian capital of Vienna. Tehran has insisted that it would resume full compliance with the deal after the full removal of the sanctions that the previous US administration under Trump illegally imposed on Tehran after its unilateral and illegitimate withdrawal from the JCPOA in May 2018.
It has already stressed that it would leave the Vienna talks if they take too long and if its legitimate demands as per the JCPOA are not met. Anyway, the other parties, especially the Europeans seem to be killing time while the new US administration is still sticking to the Trump-era sanctions.
The current US administration has not yet fulfilled the promises Joe Biden made during his presidential elections campaigns to undo Trump's actions and return to the deal. In the meantime, Tehran has also stressed that the Biden adminstrations' return to the agreement without lifting the sanctions is not important at all.
KI/PR