Turkey favours lifting of US sanctions against Iran: Foreign Minister

Turkey has urged the United States to lift the unilateral sanctions it imposed on Iran, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Monday, describing the punitive measures against his country's eastern neighbour as "inappropriate."

Ankara [Turkey], November 15 (ANI/Sputnik): Turkey has urged the United States to lift the unilateral sanctions it imposed on Iran, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Monday, describing the punitive measures against his country's eastern neighbour as "inappropriate." "Unilateral sanctions against Iran are inappropriate, they must be removed," Cavusoglu said during a joint press conference with his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amirabdollahian, in Tehran.

In 2015, Iran signed a nuclear deal, known officially as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Actions (JCPOA) with the P5+1 group, which includes the United States, China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany and the European Union. It required Tehran to scale back its nuclear program and drastically reduce its uranium reserves in exchange for sanctions relief, including the lifting of an arms embargo five years after the deal was made. In May 2018, the US abandoned its conciliatory stance, withdrawing from the JCPOA and implementing hardline policies against Iran, prompting the latter to largely abandon its own obligations under the accord.

Since April, Vienna has been hosting talks aimed at preventing the Iran nuclear deal from failing altogether. The sixth round of the talks finished on June 20 and the negotiations have since hit a deadlock. In October, both Tehran and Washington affirmed their readiness to revive the Vienna talks as soon as possible. (ANI/Sputnik)

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