Blaming Iran for current situation in JCPOA talks "not fair"

"Finger pointing seems to be a sign that the #ViennaTalks are at a stalemate. If so, it’s the result of a number of various factors. Attempts to put all the blame on #Iran aren’t fair," Mikhail Ulyanov, Russian representative in Vienna-based international organizations said on his Twitter account on Monday. 

The talks are too much dependent on the domestic political schedule of another participant, he added.

Ulyanov made the comments in reaction to a tweet that said, "EU's @JosepBorrellF: “We are at a stalemate. Now we are stopped... The past proposal, the last request from the Iranian side, was not exactly pushing for an agreement and if we had to say today if something happened this week, I would say ‘I don’t think so.’”

The United States, under former president Donald Trump, abandoned the Iran deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in May 2018 and reinstated unilateral sanctions that the agreement had lifted.

The talks to salvage the agreement kicked off in the Austrian capital city of Vienna in April last year, months after Joe Biden succeeded Trump, with the intention of examining Washington’s seriousness in rejoining the deal and removing anti-Iran sanctions.

Despite notable progress, the US indecisiveness and procrastination caused multiple interruptions in the marathon talks.

Iranian officials have, time and again, asserted that upon potentially lifting the sanctions, Washington should be able to guarantee that it would not return the bans again.

Iranian foreign minister recently said that an agreement is possible if the American side adopts a realistic approach towards the JCPOA negotiations.