Ties with Moscow and Beijing, Talks in Vienna Complementary in Ensuring Iran’s Interests: Official
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council highlighted Tehran’s push for balancing foreign relations, saying the ties with Russia and China and the ongoing Vienna talks on the revival of the JCPOA play a “complementary role” in securing Iran’s national interests.
“The strategy of balancing foreign relations will be pursued powerfully,” Ali Shamkhani said in a tweet on Monday.
“Moscow, Beijing & Vienna play a complementary role in securing #Iran's national interests. The artificial dichotomies are all misdirected addresses that have limited the functioning of foreign policy in past,” he added.
In a Persian-language version of his tweet, Shamkhani specified the artificial dichotomies of the “battlefield and diplomacy or look East and pivot to the West”, Press TV reported.
Iran has invariably underscored over the years that it aims to have political and economic relations with all countries across the world as long as the sovereignty and integrity of the Islamic Republic are respected.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said earlier in the day that the promotion of relations with the neighboring countries is the main priority of the country’s political approach, adding that the new administration is determined to optimize relations with all neighbors.
Iran and the remaining participants to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) have been holding talks in the Austrian capital since April last year with the aim of reviving the deal by bringing the US into full compliance.
The US left the JCPOA in May 2018 under former president Donald Trump. The Vienna talks began on a promise by Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, to rejoin the deal and repeal the so-called maximum pressure campaign against Iran. Biden, however, has so far failed to undo Trump’s own undoing of Barack Obama’s Iran policy, which led to the JCPOA in June 2015.
