Iran Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Baqeri Kani, arrives for talks in London, November 11, 2021 (Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty)

Iran’s top officials send out mixed messages over a return to the Vienna talks on November 29.

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian previewed discussions with the three European countries among the 5+1 Powers — the UK, France, and Germany — with an upbeat tweet indicating Iran’s acceptance of the link between US re-entry to the 2015 nuclear deal, the lifting of American sanctions, and Iran’s return to compliance with the terms of the agreement.

But following his Thursday meetings in London, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Baqeri returned to the precondition of the removal of US sanctions, extended by Donald Trump in November 2018 after he had withdrawn the US from the deal in May.

Baqeri also emphasized that Iran must have a guarantee that the US will never again leave the agreement.

US President Joe Biden has indicated that he will adhere to that condition; however, he cannot bind a successor Administration.

The Iranian minister said on Thursday, “We need verification, and this remains unresolved. It is one of the issues that remains not finalised. It is not enough for the ink to be put on the agreement.”

He added that Iran wants guarantees from European powers that they will trade with Iran regardless of US sanctions.

A financial mechanism for European payments for Iranian oil and goods, INSTEX, was established in January 2019. However, it has only provided for one limited transaction since then, with the Europeans cautious over US sanctions and Tehran refusing any measures over its ballistic missile program.

Baqeri restated Iran’s refusal of any inclusion of missile research and development in the Vienna talks, “The JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] has a clear framework and other issues are not relevant. We are not going to negotiate on our defence capabilities or our security.”

Significantly, he would not say if the Raisi Government, which took office in August, will accept the progress in the talks between April and June.

What is important is not from where we started, but what is important is that we achieve a deal that has practical results for the parties. Our main objective is to remove the illegal sanctions that they have imposed on the Iranian nation in breach of UN resolutions.

Dispute Over a UK Debt

Baqeri’s line may also have been stiffened by the UK’s refusal to commit to the repayment of £400 million over to Iran from a 1970s deal for Chieftain tanks.

In the late 1970s, the Shah paid for the tanks; however, they were not delivered after he was removed by the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of Anglo-Iranian political prisoner Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, has said the dispute is holding his wife’s release from Iran, where she was detained in April 2016.

Ratcliffe in the third week of a hunger strike protesting the situation. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was released from Evin Prison in March 2020 but is under house arrest in Tehran. Her five-year sentence was extended by another year in April.

See also Husband of Anglo-Iranian Political Prisoner Zaghari-Ratcliffe Goes on Hunger Strike

The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said in a statement, “The Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister was also pressed on the need for Iran to urgently release all British nationals unfairly detained in Iran, including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Anoosheh Ashoori, and Morad Tahbaz.”