VIENNA, Feb 21 (Reuters) - A package of sanctions prepared by the European Union in case Russia invades Ukraine includes measures targeting the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline connecting Russia to Germany, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said on Monday.
"Certification (of the pipeline) would then be stopped (if Russia invaded). There is no question about that. That therefore means that Nord Stream 2 is part of the sanctions," Nehammer told a news conference.
The pipeline has been built but is not yet operational as it is awaiting German and EU regulatory approval. read more
VIENNA, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said on Monday that talks in Vienna on reviving Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers cannot succeed unless the United States is prepared to lift sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Reuters reported last week that a U.S.-Iranian deal is taking shape in Vienna after months of indirect talks to revive a pact Washington abandoned in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump. read more
"The United States must prove its will to lift major sanctions," Raisi said in a joint news conference with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani in Doha. "To reach an agreement, guarantees are necessary for negotiations and nuclear issues."
The draft text of the agreement also alluded to other issues, including unfreezing billions of dollars in Iranian funds in South Korean banks, and the release ,of Western prisoners held in Iran.
"Aggression is bound to fail. Resistance has brought results and none of the regional issues have a military solution," Raisi said. Raisi was more cautious than Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh, who said earlier that the Vienna negotiations had made "significant progress".
Khatibzadeh also said that "nothing is agreed until everything is agreed" in the Vienna talks. "The remaining issues are the hardest," he told a weekly press briefing. READ MORE...
