China calls on US to lift sanctions against Iran

China's representatives in talks with Iran on Tuesday called on the U.S. to lift its sanctions against Iran. Officials from five world powers began a new effort Tuesday to try to bring the United States back into the foundering 2015 nuclear deal they signed with Iran, a delicate diplomatic dance that needs to balance the concerns and interests of both Washington and Tehran.

The meeting in Vienna of envoys from Russia, China, Germany, France, Britain and Iran came as the U.S. was due to start its own indirect talks with Iran. It would be one of the first signs of tangible progress in efforts to return both nations to the accord, which restricted Iran's nuclear programme in return for relief from U.S. and international sanctions.

Ambassador Wang Qun, the Chinese Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other international organizations in Vienna, said after the meeting that the current impase was caused by the U.S. decision to withdraw from the nuclear deal and impose sanctions on Iran.

Following the closed meetings of the signatories to the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Russia's delegate, Mikhail Ulyanov, tweeted that the initial talks were "successful". "The restoration of JCPOA will not happen immediately. It will take some time. How long? Nobody knows," he wrote. "The most important thing after today's meeting of the Joint Commission is that practical work towards achieving this goal has started."

In 2018, then-President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. unilaterally out of the accord, opting for what he called a maximum-pressure campaign involving restored and additional American sanctions.

Since then, Iran has been steadily violating restrictions in the deal, like the amount of enriched uranium that it can stockpile and the purity to which it can be enriched. Tehran's moves have been calculated to pressure the other nations in the deal to do more to offset crippling U.S. sanctions reimposed under Trump.

U.S. President Joe Biden, who was vice president under Barack Obama when the original deal was negotiated, has said he wants to bring the U.S. back into the JCPOA but that Iran must reverse its violations. Iran argues that the U.S. violated the deal first with its withdrawal, so Washington has to take the first step by lifting sanctions.

Image: AP