Seyyed Mohammed Marandi, chief advisor to the Iranian negotiating team in the Vienna talks

Iran wants the Western powers to offer it guarantees regarding the nuclear deal before it goes ahead with signing the agreement, Seyyed Mohammed Marandi, chief advisor to the Iranian negotiating team in the Vienna talks, told Al Mayadeen on Sunday.

"The Americans and Europeans are in a very difficult position that does not allow them to increase the pressure on Iran," Marandi said.

Referring to the consequences of European sanctions on Russia, which led to an energy crisis in Europe, Marandi explained that "gas is of great importance at this time, and the Americans and Europeans know this."

The top advisor accused the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency of being subservient to US policies, saying he implemented whatever Washington dictates.

"Iran is ready to cooperate with the IAEA, knowing that its last questions were not serious," Marandi said. "The Americans are using the IAEA to pressure Iran, and they want to keep some vague clauses to evade the agreement."

Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) spokesperson Behrouz Kamalvandi said earlier this month that Tehran fully cooperated with the IAEA regarding three sites the UN nuclear watchdog claimed to have been "undeclared nuclear sites" in Iran.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has been fully cooperative regarding the three alleged sites brought up by the agency and has sent information and answers to the agency's questions and has also held meetings to resolve the ambiguity," Kamalvandi noted.

In late August, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian demanded that the IAEA drop the issue of what the Western parties claim to be "undeclared sites", as momentum builds to revive a 2015 nuclear deal.

The nuclear deal, formally known as the JCPOA, was tanked after the United States unilaterally withdrew from it in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump, who accompanied his arbitrary decision with the imposition of harsh sanctions on Iran.

The International Atomic Energy Agency's Board of Governors adopted in early June a draft resolution submitted by the US and the E3, criticizing Iran for what they claim were incomplete answers given to the IAEA on uranium traces at "undeclared sites".

These claims were quickly refuted by the Head of the AEOI, Mohammad Eslami, who said Iran has neither secret nor unwritten nuclear activities nor unreported nuclear sites.

Following that report, Iran abandoned all commitments beyond the Safeguards Agreement in response to the IAEA's Board of Governors' adoption of an anti-Iran resolution, an Iranian lawmaker revealed, condemning the resolution passed by the agency.

The talks between Iran and the other parties to the nuclear agreement have been stuck on a few points, mainly the removal of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) from the US "terror list", with IRNA reporting that Tehran was adamant about the removal.