Tehran: Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has urged President-elect Ebrahim Raisi and his government to honour the 2015 Vienna nuclear agreement.
"This could also lead to an enormous upswing in the country in the new political era, from which future generations would also benefit," Zarif wrote in a letter to parliament on Monday cited by the ISNA news agency.
When it came to the nuclear deal, the new government should focus on long-term national interests and not on ideology, Iran's chief diplomat said, according to ISNA.
Raisi is due to succeed Hassan Rowhani on August 5. The cleric won the presidential election in June with the backing of the country's hardliners.
The 60-year-old had repeatedly criticised the agreement in recent years and, according to observers, will not continue the moderate nuclear policy of Rowhani and Zarif.
But during the election campaign Raisi also promised a quick end to the economic crisis - something only realistically achievable if US sanctions are lifted within the framework of the nuclear deal.
The negotiations on saving the 2015 nuclear agreement were interrupted after Raisi's election victory.
They are now to be resumed from August with Raisi's new nuclear team.
The nuclear dispute and the US sanctions have plunged oil-rich Iran into an acute economic crisis. Because of the sanctions, the Islamic Republic cannot import enough coronavirus vaccines. So far less than 8 per cent of the more than 83 million Iranians have received a jab.
The US, under then president Donald Trump, left the nuclear agreement in 2018 and again imposed economically painful sanctions on Tehran.
Iran then gradually expanded its nuclear activities in violation of the agreements and also restricted international nuclear inspections.
The diplomatic efforts of the other parties to the agreement -Germany, Great Britain, France, Russia and China - are currently focussing on bringing the US back to the deal and on the lifting of sanctions against Tehran.
In return, Iran is to resume compliance with its nuclear obligations. -- dpa
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