No ‘step-for-step’ approach accepted: Khatibzadeh

In an interview with Press TV, Saeed Khatibzadeh said that the United States has to return to compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal by lifting its anti-Iran sanctions all at once, asserting that the Islamic Republic accepts no “step-for-step” approach in this regard.

He said the talks held so far have been focused on how the parties attending the Commission “could make sure that the US will get back to full compliance and effectively remove all imposed, re-imposed or re-labelled sanctions after it ceased its participation in the JCPOA.”

The spokesman said the Commission’s first gathering had agreed to continue the talks at “two parallel expert meetings.”

A first meeting would focus on the removal of the sanctions that the US returned against Iran after leaving the JCPOA in 2018, he said. A second one would address the nuclear aspect and the remedial measures that the Islamic Republic has taken to retaliate against Washington and others’ non-compliance with the nuclear deal, the official noted.

The meetings would be reporting the results of their technical discussions to the Commission, which would gather again later on.

Khatibzadeh repeated the Islamic Republic’s assertion that the country would be ready to stop its retaliatory nuclear steps should the US get back to compliance with the deal in a manner that could be verified by Tehran.

He also dismissed rumors that the US had agreed to unfreeze some Iranian funds in exchange for Tehran stopping uranium enrichment at 20-percent-level purity and end its application of advanced centrifuges.

The spokesman said Iran’s position was “crystal clear,” and again denied Tehran’s approval of any “step-for-step” plan.

“We have just one step and that is the removal of all the sanctions imposed,” Khatibzadeh said.

He spurned any step-for-step attitude towards the deal’s revival, saying such concepts were not worthy of consideration by the Islamic Republic.