Iraqi FM Calls for Direct Talks Between Iran, US

Fuad Hussein spoke at a news conference after meeting his Iranian counterpart in Tehran stressing that heightened tension between Iran and the US directly affects his country's stability.

“Any opening in Tehran-Washington relations will positively impact Iraq’s internal situation from political, economic and security perspectives,” Hussein said.

"We think it's time for direct talks between Tehran and Washington so that the two countries reach a common understanding not only on the nuclear issue but also on sanctions imposed on Iran,” he said.

The JCPOA was signed in 2015 between Iran and the Group 5+1 and endorsed by the UN Security Council Resolution 2231.

However, then-US president Donald Trump unilaterally pulled Washington out of the nuclear deal in May 2018 and reinstated the anti-Iranian sanctions that had been lifted by the deal.

As the remaining European parties have failed to fulfill their commitments to the accord and compensate for Washington’s absence, Iran moved in May 2019 to scale back its JCPOA commitments.

Iran and the remaining parties to the JCPOA have held seven rounds of talks in Vienna, which began after the US administration of Joe Biden voiced a willingness to rejoin the nuclear agreement, to examine the prospect of the bans’ fresh removal.

Iran has refused to speak directly to American officials in the rounds of talks since the US abandoned the accord.

Hussein also touched on the evacuation and sudden death of Iran's top diplomat in war-torn Yemen, Hassan Irloo, whom officially began his diplomatic mission to Yemen in November 2020, in defiance of the United States’ anger at the two countries’ developing relations.

The United States had added him to the list of its sanctions a month later.

Hussein said the US cooperated with Saudi Arabia and Iran to transfer Irloo on an Iraqi plane from Yemen to Tehran, where Iranian authorities said was martyred because of the coronavirus infection.