The long-anticipated nuclear deal talks between the Iranian regime and the other signatories of the 2015 nuclear deal resumed on Monday in Vienna, Austria.

Also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal was originally pushed through by former United States President Barack Obama and was signed by the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, China, and Russia in Vienna on July 14, 2015.

Struan Stevenson, the coordinator of the Campaign for Iran Change and a former member of the European Parliament representing Scotland, said, “It was widely promoted by the United States and European Union officials as a foreign policy breakthrough. In fact, the deal was a flagrant act of appeasement of the theocratic regime, lifting sanctions and releasing over $150 billion in frozen assets.”

When the deal was signed, Obama agreed to the regime’s demand that Iranian military sites would be exempt from routine inspections by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This was despite intelligence that had indicated that these military bases were the sites that the regime’s nuclear weapons program was being run from.

Obama’s successor, Donald Trump stated during his presidential campaign that the nuclear deal was ‘the worst deal ever’, and once in office, he withdrew the United States from the deal, restored tough sanctions on the regime, and later listed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization.

The IRGC are the ones in control of the nuclear program in Iran, as well as controlling almost 90% of the Iranian economy. Soon after the U.S. departed from the deal, the mullahs began accelerating their uranium enrichment program and later claimed that they had enriched uranium up to almost weapons-grade level.

The current U.S. administration, headed by President Joe Biden, has undone Trump’s previous actions by once again appeasing the regime, lifting their sanctions, and is set on reinstating the JCPOA despite an ‘inconclusive’ to Iran by the Director-General of the IAEA Rafael Grossi last week.

Stevenson said, “Grossi had sought reassurances over blocks placed on IAEA inspections earlier in the year, as well as answers to questions about undeclared nuclear material in hidden sites in Iran and mistreatment of his inspectors by the Iranian authorities.”

Thousands of the regime’s operational centrifuges have been moved to an underground site at Natanz, the regime’s main nuclear facility in the Isfahan Province. This facility is known to intelligence agencies after the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) revealed its location to them in 2002.

The MEK has gone on to reveal many more secret nuclear sites across Iran. The findings of the MEK and other resistance units have since proved that the regime has long had plans to build a nuclear bomb, even before the JCPOA was signed in 2015, and has no plans to cease its program anytime soon.

Stevenson said, “By acquiring the nuclear bomb and interfering in countries of the Middle East, the aging and despotic supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wants to guarantee his grasp on power. He wants to hold world peace and security hostage to gain concessions.”

Ahead of the latest talks, Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian demanded that all sanctions against the regime should be lifted. He stated, “If the opposing sides are prepared to return to their full obligations and the lifting of sanctions, a good and even immediate agreement can be reached.”

If sanctions are lifted, it will be very much a betrayal for Iranian citizens who desperately want to overthrow the regime, in favor of a free and democratic society. The Iranian Resistance is committed to assisting the Iranian people to make this dream a reality and once and for all, establish a republic based on the separation of religion and state.

Stevenson said, “None of these objectives can ever be achieved under the current tyrannical regime, and the lifting of sanctions and renewal of the nuclear deal will simply provide them with a further lifeline to reinforce their oppression and to convince them of the weakness of the West.”