Window for nuclear talks still open, says Iran FM

MUSCAT: Iran is still open to negotiations for reviving a nuclear deal with global powers but warned on Wednesday it would alter course if the West doesn´t change its behaviour.

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian made the comments on the sidelines of a visit to Oman, a Gulf state which played a mediating role in the build-up to the original 2015 agreement.

That deal between Tehran and global powers was designed to stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb. Tehran has always denied such a goal.

Amir-Abdollahian´s meeting in Muscat with Oman´s Sultan Haitham bin Tareq came alongside stalled international talks to revive the 2015 pact.

On-off talks to revive the agreement began in April last year but Iran has now been hit with additional Western sanctions for its repression of nationwide anti-regime protests since September, and the supply of drones to Russia.

Washington said in early October that a return to the nuclear deal was unlikely in the near future.

“The window for reaching an agreement on the part of the Islamic Republic of Iran will not always be open,” Amir-Abdollahian said in a video issued by Iranian state media.

“If the opposite parties do not stop hypocrisy, especially the Americans, and the Westerners do not act realistically, it is not certain that the window that is open today will remain open tomorrow,” he said.