Window for reviving nuclear deal not to open forever: Iranian FM

TEHRAN - The Iranian foreign minister warned on Wednesday that the window for achieving an agreement on the revival of a 2015 nuclear deal won't remain open forever, official news agency IRNA reported.

"The window for a nuclear agreement is open today, but ... if the other sides, especially the United States, do not give up hypocrisy and the West does not act realistically," Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told IRNA in Muscat, capital of Oman, following meetings with Oman's Sultan Haitham bin Tarik and other senior officials.

Tehran will resort to other alternatives if the West continues its hypocrisy and interference, the Iranian foreign minister added.

Commenting on his meeting with the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on the sidelines of a regional conference in Jordan's capital Amman last week, Amir-Abdollahian said the EU, as the coordinator of the nuclear talks, is continuing its efforts.

During his meeting with the Omani sultan earlier in the day, Amir-Abdollahian said Iran welcomes any initiative by Oman to help reach "a good, robust and lasting nuclear agreement."

In a video that emerged last week, US President Joe Biden said the nuclear deal with Iran was "dead," but he would not announce it publicly. The White House has not disputed the authenticity of the video.

Iran signed the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), with world powers in July 2015, agreeing to put some curbs on its nuclear program in return for the removal of the sanctions on the country. The United States, however, pulled out of the deal in May 2018 and reimposed its unilateral sanctions on Iran, prompting the latter to reduce some of its nuclear commitments under the deal.

Several rounds of talks have so far been held between Iran and the remaining JCPOA parties to revive the agreement, but no tangible outcome has been achieved.