News - Middle East: A total of 160 Iranian legislators have called on the country’s negotiating team not accept artificial deadlines set by the Western side for the finalization of the ongoing negotiations in the Austrian capital of Vienna on the revival of the 2015 Iran deal and removal of sanctions on Tehran.

The parliamentarians, in a joint statement released on Sunday, stated that the negotiators should not constrain themselves to the fictitious deadlines, urging them to resiliently defend national interests and strongly observe the country's declared red lines during the talks.

“Now that the [Russo-Ukrainian] crisis has heightened the West's need for Iran's energy supplies, a decrease in crude oil prices should not occur before the United States meets Iran's legitimate demands,” the statement read.

“We urge the negotiating team to seriously pursue sufficient economic, technical and political guarantees from the United States in order to ensure that the country will not repeat its illegal exit from the [Iran] deal once again,” the lawmakers said.

They underscored that preservation of the basic elements of Iran’s civilian nuclear program at home is the strongest guarantee that Washington would not repeat its previous mistake.

The Iranian negotiators, they said, are also required to seek indemnities for US losses on the livelihood of ordinary people. They must make sure that the removal of sanctions is comprehensive and effective, serves the country’s national interests and will remain on paper, the legislators pointed out.

“The guarantees must be real at the same time as being legal. We regard excuses like being a non-nuclear matter and not having to do the JCPOA – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – as wholly unacceptable,” the statement also read.

While emphasizing the goals and frameworks of the 'Strategic Action Plan to Lift Sanctions and Safeguard Interests, which Iranian lawmakers overwhelmingly voted in favor of on December 1, 2020, the Iranian parliament follows on any agreement from the perspective of the country’s economic benefits and restoration of the lost rights of the nation. It. Therefore, insists on Article 7 the law, rejects curbs on Iran’s nuclear program and demands effective removal of sanctions, the lawmakers said.

The United States left the JCPOA in 2018 and began to implement what it called the “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions against the Islamic Republic, depriving the country of the economic benefits of the agreement, including the removal of sanctions, for which Iran had agreed to put certain caps on its nuclear activities.

In the meantime, the other parties to the deal, in particular France, Britain and Germany, only paid lip service to safeguarding Iran’s economic dividends as promised under the JCPOA, prompting Iran – after an entire year of “strategic patience” – to reduce its nuclear obligations in a legal move under the deal.

The Vienna talks began last April between Iran and the remaining parties to the JCPOA- Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China- on the assumption that the US, under the Biden administration, is willing to repeal the so-called maximum pressure policy pursued by former president, Donald Trump, against Tehran.

Source: Press TV