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Iran: Parliamentarians set conditions for revival of nuclear deal

Iranian MPs have called for assurances that US won't abandon new nuclear deal in future
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi delivers a speech on Parliament Day in Tehran on 1 December 2021 (AFP)

Iranian MPs have set conditions for the revival of a 2015 nuclear pact, state media reported on Sunday.

These included establishing legal guarantees approved by the US Congress that Washington would not leave the pact at a later date.

In a letter addressed to President Ebrahim Raisi, the MPs requested that the "snapback mechanism" - under which sanctions on Iran would be immediately reinstated - would not be triggered by Washington, Iran's Tasnim news agency reported.

Iran and the United States have engaged in indirect talks in Vienna over the past year to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement between Tehran and world powers, which the then-US President Donald Trump left in 2018 and Iran subsequently violated by ramping up its nuclear programme.

Negotiations have now stalled as Tehran and Washington blame each other for failing to take the necessary political decisions to settle the remaining issues.

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Imposing such conditions at a crucial time could endanger a final agreement by restricting negotiators' room for manoeuvre in the talks.

"The United States should give legal guarantees, approved by its ... Congress, that it will not exit the pact again," the semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted a statement signed by 250 MPs out of a total of 290.

The letter also said that under a revived pact the United States should not be able to "use pretexts to trigger the snapback mechanism", under which sanctions on Iran would be immediately reinstated, the Tasnim news agency reported.

The MPs also said that "sanctions lifted under the reinstated pact should not be reimposed and Iran should not be hit by new sanctions".

Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said on Sunday that US President Joe Biden should issue executive orders to lift some sanctions on Iran to show his goodwill towards reviving the nuclear pact.

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