Vienna Talks, Ties with Moscow, Beijing Complementary in Ensuring Iran’s Interests: Shamkhani

 

“Moscow, Beijing & Vienna play a complementary role in securing #Iran's national interests. The artificial dichotomies are all misdirected addresses that have limited the functioning of foreign policy in past,” Iran’s top security official added.

 

Shamkhani specified the artificial dichotomies of the “battlefield and diplomacy or look East and pivot to the West.”

 

Iran has invariably underscored over the years that it aims to have political and economic relations with all countries across the world as long as the sovereignty and integrity of the Islamic Republic are respected.

 

Earlier in the day, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said that the promotion of relations with the neighboring countries is the main priority of the Islamic Republic’s political approach, adding that the new administration is determined to optimize relations with all neighbors.

 

Iran and the remaining participants to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA] have been holding talks in the Austrian capital since April last year with the aim of reviving the deal by bringing the US into full compliance.

 

The US left the JCPOA in May 2018 under former president Donald Trump. The Vienna talks began on a promise by Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, to rejoin the deal and repeal the so-called maximum pressure campaign against Iran. Biden, however, has so far failed to undo Trump’s own undoing of Barack Obama’s Iran policy, which led to the JCPOA in June 2015.