Foreign Ministry to Make Every Effort to Help Neutralize Sanctions

The Iranian Foreign Ministry will use all international capacities to increase the country’s power to neutralize sanctions, while pursuing diplomacy to ensure a maximum removal of the bans, a senior diplomat said. 
“Nullifying sanctions will not only contribute to diplomatic efforts to remove them, but will also considerably increase the country’s deterrence against cruel sanctions,” Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Baqeri Kani said on the sidelines of an oil, gas and petrochemicals exhibition in Tehran on Sunday, IRNA reported. 
Baqeri Kani is also Iran’s top negotiator in talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which once removed international sanctions on Tehran in return for curbs on its nuclear program. 
The United States, however, withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018 and reimposed sweeping sanctions on Tehran, prompting it to scale down its commitments in response. 
Negotiations began in April 2021 in Vienna, Austria, to work out how both sides can resume compliance, but the talks have been stalled for nearly two months over a few remaining differences. 
A visit by the European Union coordinator of the talks, Enrique Mora, to Tehran this week has reportedly “deblocked” the negotiations, although no date has yet been arranged for a future meeting in Vienna. 
Tehran says it is ready to resume the talks provided that the US makes the required political decisions and adopts a realistic approach. 
Obstacles can only be removed by the “guilty party’s” adherence to Iran’s “rational and principled solutions”, according to the Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani.
“If they have the will, we are ready & an agreement is available,” he said.

Fruitless Scheme 

Iran demands a complete and verifiable removal of sanctions, as well as all component of the so-called maximum pressure campaign, before reversing its nuclear measures. 
However, the current Iranian administration has stressed since its first day that it would not tie the affairs of the country to the Vienna talks and will implement parallel plans to nullify the sanctions and develop a sanctions-resistant economy. 
“The strategic policy of neutralizing sanctions, along with the smart initiative for the lifting of restrictions, have rendered the enemy’s scheme to stop the country’s multi-faceted development fruitless,” Baqeri Kani said.  
Experts in the energy sector once used the art of circumventing sanctions as the only tool against US restrictions, but later developed the technology of countering the sanctions before finally acquiring the knowledge to render them null and void, he added. 
“Other sanctioned countries are now seeking to obtain the knowledge of negating sanction from Iran.” 
He also stressed that in order for sanctions-lifting to be sustainable, it is essential to preserve and improve the ability of neutralizing such pressure. 
While serious in negotiations and in fulfillment of international obligations, Iran is determined not to trust the enemy and rely on foreigners to become immune to sanctions, according to the diplomat. 
“It is only wise to use all diplomatic capacities to uphold national interests while avoiding trust in the enemy and reliance on foreigners,” he said. 
Iranian officials have repeatedly asserted that they would not cross the country’s red lines for the sake of sanctions lifting. 
That includes the need for the removal of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps from the list of terrorist organizations, a demand that the US refuses to entertain, arguing that it is outside the purview of the JCPOA. 
Iran says the elite military group’s designation was part of the maximum pressure and therefore JCPOA-related.