TEHRAN – Several senior Iranian lawmakers have praised the Iranian negotiating team in Vienna for its revolutionary approach towards the West.
Mohammad Javad Karimi Ghoddousi, a member of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said the Iranian negotiating team had shown a rarely seen resistance to the West.
“Negotiating with a revolutionary vision and unprecedented resistance to the western side, the 13th government negotiating team has been able to defend the country’s achievements in nuclear power, science and technology,” he told Iran’s state-run news agency IRNA.
He added: “The strategy and policies of the 13th government’s negotiating team are logical and based on faith and revolutionary support. Based on these beliefs, the nuclear negotiation team has been able to demonstrate its effectiveness in the negotiating environment. The negotiating team always represents the revolutionary and Muslim nation of Iran and must negotiate at the negotiating table with revolutionary and Islamic logic and with the literature of diplomats.”
Lawmakers attacked the former Iranian negotiating team, saying they were soft on the West and had caved in to West demands.
Karimi Ghoddousi stressed that the details of the Vienna talks had been monitored in several meetings of the parliamentary committee.
“The negotiating team’s explanation of the system’s red lines on nuclear technology and sanctions lifting in committee meetings was very logical and persuasive and deserves praise.”
“The negotiating team was even able to obtain concessions from the other side. And Westerners have been forced to back down from some of their irrational demands,” he said.
According to Karimi Ghoddousi, the outcome of the new round of talks will be that Iran will implement its commitment and the other sides will review it.
The negotiating team’s stance and resistance led to the Western side’s passivity in the negotiations, the lawmakers said, adding that the nuclear negotiating team refuses to deviate even a bit from the revolutionary positions and outlined framework.
Abbas Moqtadai, another MP and deputy chairman of the parliamentary committee, also praised the Iranian negotiating team, saying that the negotiators’ resistance had left the West passive.
“The resistance of the negotiating team resulted in the West being passive in the negotiations, in the war of wills, the Iranian nation dictating resistance and victory to the other side,” he told IRNA.
He added: “According to the instructions of the leader, we must create a culture in the country that despite the efforts of the diplomatic apparatus to advance the goals of the system, the country’s internal affairs should not be bound by negotiations. ”
In his speech on Tuesday, Islamic Revolution leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, citing the good direction being pursued by the country’s diplomats, suggested that “officials should not wait at all until the nuclear issue is resolved.” Based on the realities of the country, they should plan and take action to solve the problems in the country.”
Ayatollah Khamenei described the officials responsible for the negotiations as revolutionary, pious, industrious individuals.
“The Secretary of State and other officials involved in the negotiations are providing detailed reports to centers in the country. It is okay to criticize and evaluate their performance, provided such opinions are free from suspicion and pessimism. As I have said many times, such opinions should not undermine the individuals concerned or cause people to lose hope,” he stressed.
The leader of the Islamic Revolution expressed satisfaction at the negotiating team’s resistance to the greed of the other sides, stating: “The other side has withdrawn from the JCPOA and broken its commitments. Now they feel helpless and have reached a dead end. But the Islamic Republic will go through this phase as it has gone through many phases before by relying on its people.”
Talks in Vienna on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), have stalled over a number of issues.
Iran has demanded that the Biden administration remove the IRGC from a US list of foreign terrorist organizations because it believes the Trump administration’s move to designate the group as a foreign terrorist organization was politically motivated and aimed making it difficult, if not impossible, for the next administration to revive the 2015 nuclear deal.
The US initially refused to delist the IRGC and, according to press reports, is now attempting to keep a relatively small branch of the IRGC on the list while delisting the military group.
Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar reported on Wednesday that Washington had made an offer to delist the IRGC and instead keep the IRGC’s Quds Force on the list, a move rejected by Iran.
Citing a diplomatic source, the Lebanese newspaper said the logic behind rejecting the US offer was that Iran was concerned that any US decision to keep part of the IRGC under sanctions would increase the risks associated with Doing business with Iran for some foreign firms would reduce Iran’s economic benefits from a revived JCPOA.
