"We supported the Iran nuclear deal. Unfortunately, ex-US President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement. We hope that the Biden administration will re-join it, and brotherly Iran will be freed from sanctions", Cavusoglu said at a joint press conference with Iranian Mohammad Javad Zarif, currently on a visit in Turkey.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, which stipulated scaling down the Iranian nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief, was signed in 2015 by Iran, China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the EU.
However, in 2018 US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the deal and re-imposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic, saying that the deal was flawed from the beginning and that Iran was continuing to strive to obtain nuclear weapons. In response, Tehran started gradually suspending its obligations under the accord.
The situation escalated in December following the assassination of Iranian top nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, when the Iranian parliament passed a law to increase its uranium enrichment and stop UN inspections of nuclear sites. In January, the country reported it had succeeded in enriching uranium at 20 percent at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant.
Addressing the issue, Trump's successor, US President Joe Biden, has voiced his support for reversing the Trump administration's withdrawal from the JCPOA, while Tehran has reportedly put forward several conditions to start talks on restoring the nuclear deal.
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani also noted that the new US administration has a chance to stop the maximum pressure approach, reversing Trump's policies, and urged Biden to return to the deal.