Iran calls on Biden to unconditionally lift US sanctions

Iran on Friday called on the new US administration to "unconditionally" lift sanctions imposed by Donald Trump on the Islamic republic to salvage the 2015 nuclear deal, warning against any concessions.

Just two days after US President Joe Biden took office, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif published an op-ed in the US foreign policy magazine Foreign Affairs on Tehran's view towards saving the deal.

The agreement has been largely in tatters since former president Donald Trump withdrew from it unilaterally in 2018 and reimposed harsh sanctions as part of a policy of "maximum pressure" on Iran.

Known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the deal was agreed between Iran, the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany.

It offered sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on Tehran's nuclear ambitions and guarantees it would not seek an atomic bomb. Iran has maintained it has only pursued a civilian nuclear energy programme.

"The new administration in Washington has a fundamental choice to make," Zarif, who is considered one of the architects of the 2015 nuclear deal, wrote in the op-ed.

"It can embrace the failed policies of the Trump administration," or Biden "can choose a better path by ending Trump's failed policy of 'maximum pressure' and returning to the deal his predecessor abandoned," he added.

(Source: NDTV)

"But if Washington instead insists on extracting concessions, then this opportunity will be lost."