Japan proposes initiative to revive Iran nuclear deal

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian says Japan has proposed an initiative to revive a stalled nuclear deal struck in 2015 with Iran and six major powers, including the United States.

Amir-Abdollahian told Kyodo News on Sunday that any initiative from Japan that aligns with “Iran’s interests” would be viewed positively by Tehran.

He stated, “We support the constructive role of Japan in reviving the nuclear deal.”

The Iranian foreign minister did not detail the initiative. He said he received the proposal from the Japanese government when he visited Tokyo in August and met Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and then Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi.

Amir-Abdollahian said, however, that “excessive demands” by the United States, Britain, France and Germany regarding the nuclear deal have delayed the talk’s progress.

The deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was inked in July 2015 between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France — plus Germany.

It enabled limited sanction relief for the Islamic Republic, which, in turn, volunteered to change some aspects of its nuclear work.

The US, however, left the agreement in 2018 as part of former president Donald Trump’s so-called “maximum pressure” policy against Iran, returning all the sanctions that the deal had lifted.

The US allies in the deal — France, Britain, and Germany — then bowed under Washington’s pressure by toeing the sanction line and suspending their trade activities with Tehran.

Negotiations to revive the agreement started in April 2021. The talks have, however, stalled amid Washington’s refusal to offer guarantees that it would not ditch the deal again.

The Iranian foreign minister also attributed the delay to what he described as “interference” by the countries in a domestic issue of Iran, particularly regarding protests over the death of Mahsa Amini who lost her life in police custody in the capital Tehran September last year.

The United States, Britain and the European Union have imposed sanctions on Iranian individuals and entities over groundless accusations of “human rights abuses”.

Riots broke out in Iran in mid-September after 22-year-old Amini fainted at a police station in Tehran and was pronounced dead three days later in a hospital. An official report by Iran’s Legal Medicine Organization concluded that Amini’s death was caused by illness rather than alleged blows to the head or other vital body organs.

Despite clarification on the circumstances surrounding her death, protests erupted in the country, which later turned violent and led to attacks on security officers and acts of vandalism against public property as well as police vehicles and ambulances.