MOSCOW: Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday that Moscow had received guarantees from Washington on its ability to trade with Tehran as part of ongoing talks to salvage the Iran nuclear deal.
“We received written guarantees. They are included in the text of the agreement itself on the resumption of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on the Iranian nuclear program,” Lavrov said at a press conference in Moscow with Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.
More than 10 months of talks in Vienna have brought major powers close to renewing the landmark 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on regulating Iran’s nuclear program.
The negotiations halted after Moscow earlier this month demanded guarantees that Western sanctions imposed following its military operation in Ukraine would not damage its trade with Iran.
Lavrov said that the guarantees Moscow had received from Washington would protect Russian involvement in Iran’s sole Bushehr nuclear energy plant.
The minister said Moscow and Tehran share the position that Western sanctions are imposed with the aim of overriding international law and accused Washington and its partners of directing the penalties “primarily against ordinary citizens.”
The 2015 deal gave Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.
The agreement aimed to ensure Iran would not be able to develop a nuclear weapon, which it has always denied seeking. “Russia will not be an obstacle to reaching an agreement,” Iran’s Amir-Abdollahian said at the press conference with Lavrov.
“There will be no relation between Ukraine’s developments ... and Vienna negotiations,” he said, referring to the ongoing conflict and talks on renewing the 2015 agreement.
He praised Russia’s “very positive and constructive role” in the talks and said Moscow would “stay beside the Islamic Republic of Iran until the end of the negotiations and reaching a good, strong and lasting agreement.”
Foreign Minister Lavrov says Russia received US guarantees on Iran deal
https://arab.news/63zsf
Foreign Minister Lavrov says Russia received US guarantees on Iran deal
- Lavrov said that the guarantees would protect Russian involvement in Iran’s sole Bushehr nuclear energy plant
Top Australian writers’ festival canceled after Palestinian author barred
- 180 authors boycotted the event and its director resigned after a Palestinian author was disinvited
SYDNEY: One of Australia’s top writers’ festivals was canceled on Tuesday, after 180 authors boycotted the event and its director resigned saying she could not be party to silencing a Palestinian author and warned moves to ban protests and slogans after the Bondi Beach mass shooting threatened free speech.
Louise Adler, the Jewish daughter of Holocaust survivors, said on Tuesday she was quitting her role at the Adelaide Writers’ Week in February, following a decision by the festival’s board to disinvite a Palestinian-Australian author.
The novelist and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah said the move to bar her was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday announced a national day of mourning would be held on January 22 to remember the 15 people killed in last month’s shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach.
Police say the alleged gunmen were inspired by the Islamic State militant group, and the incident sparked nationwide calls to tackle antisemitism, and prompted state and federal government moves to tighten hate speech laws.
The Adelaide Festival board said on Tuesday its decision last week to disinvite Abdel-Fattah, on the grounds it would not be culturally sensitive for her to appear at the literary event “so soon after Bondi,” was made “out of respect for a community experiencing the pain from a devastating event.”
“Instead, this decision has created more division and for that we express our sincere apologies,” the board said in a statement.
The event would not go ahead and remaining board members will step down, it added.
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, British author Zadie Smith, Australian author Kathy Lette, Pulitzer Prize-winning American Percival Everett and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis are among the authors who said they would no longer appear at the festival in South Australia state, Australian media reported.
The festival board on Tuesday apologized to Abdel-Fattah for “how the decision was represented.”
“This is not about identity or dissent but rather a continuing rapid shift in the national discourse around the breadth of freedom of expression in our nation following Australia’s worst terror attack in history,” it added.
Abdel-Fattah wrote on social media that she did not accept the apology, saying she had nothing to do with the Bondi attack, “nor did any Palestinian.”
Adler earlier wrote in The Guardian that the board’s decision to disinvite Abdel-Fattah “weakens freedom of speech and is the harbinger of a less free nation, where lobbying and political pressure determine who gets to speak and who doesn’t.”
The South Australian state government has appointed a new festival board.
