Islam Times - Ankara Expresses Hope That Biden Returns to Iran Nuclear Deal

Islam Times - Foreign ministers of Turkey and Iran, Mevlut Cavusoglu and Mohammad Javad Zarif reiterated their countries’ commitment to cooperate to ensure stability and peace in the region, as they touched upon the set of mechanisms in this regard.

Speaking in a joint news conference after a bilateral meeting in Istanbul on Friday, Cavusoglu said Turkey has multiple diplomatic mechanisms with Iran, including the ones in the Caucasus and the Astana format for Syria.

Regarding the new US administration, both ministers expressed hope that Biden returns to the Iran nuclear deal, unilaterally abandoned by former US President Donald Trump in 2018.

“Turkey hopes that the newly elected Biden administration in the US will return to the nuclear agreement with Iran and withdraw sanctions on the Iranian people,” Cavusoglu said, while Zarif said they expect relations to flourish even further “with the US' more constructive approach.”

Zarif noted that his country does not see nuclear weapons as a means of security, and on the contrary, they want all countries possessing such weapons to eliminate them.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA] was seen as a great step toward ensuring peace and stability in the Middle East when the P5+1 countries – the US, the UK, France, China, Russia and Germany – along with the EU agreed to relieve sanctions imposed on Iran on the condition that the country curbs its nuclear capacity.

After nearly three years, Trump announced on May 8 that his country would withdraw from the agreement, which took effect during the term of his predecessor Barack Obama. The US' allies across the Atlantic – Germany, France and the UK– criticized Trump’s decision and they have been working on a special purpose vehicle [SPV] to facilitate the payments for the EU-Iran trade.