Iran-US nuclear talks will continue ‘in the coming days’, Tehran and EU say According to Reuters

By Parisa Hafezi

DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran’s indirect talks with the United States on restoring the 2015 nuclear accord will soon resume, Iran’s foreign minister said on Saturday amid the top UN diplomat. The European Union pushed for months-long negotiations.

“We are prepared to resume negotiations in the coming days. It is important for Iran to receive the full economic benefits from the 2015 agreement,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said. said he held a “long but positive meeting” with the EU. Foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby (NYSE:) said he could not talk about the status of the negotiations.

“But nothing has changed in our view that a nuclear deal is the best way to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear weapons status,” Kirby told reporters traveling aboard Air Force One. “We want to make them compliant again.”

The treaty appeared to be on the verge of a revival in March when the EU – which is coordinating the negotiations – invited foreign ministers representing the parties to the accord to come to Vienna to finalize a deal after 11 months of negotiations. indirect negotiations between Tehran and the administration of President Joe Biden.

But negotiations have since become bogged down, mainly due to Tehran’s insistence on Washington’s removal of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), its elite security force, from its list of organizations. United States Foreign Terrorism.

“We are expected to resume talks in the coming days and break the impasse. It’s been three months and we need to speed things up. I’m happy about the decision that has been made in Tehran. and Washington,” Borrell said on television. press conference in Tehran.

Two officials, one Iranian and one European, told Reuters ahead of Borrell’s trip that “two issues including one about sanctions still have to be resolved”, comments that Iran’s foreign ministry did not confirm nor confirmed. do not deny.

“We have agreed to resume negotiations between Iran and the United States in the coming days, with the support of my team, to resolve the final outstanding issues,” Borrell said.

“And coming days means coming days. I mean, quickly, immediately.”

In 2018, then-US President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal under which Iran agreed to limit its nuclear program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions.

The US withdrawal and reimposition of sanctions caused Iran to begin violating its core nuclear limits about a year later.

Western powers fear Iran is getting closer to a nuclear bomb capability if it decides to, although Iran says its intentions are purely peaceful.

Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, which makes decisions in the nuclear negotiations, told Borrell that Iran would further develop its nuclear program until the West change his “illegal behavior”.

“Iran’s retaliatory actions in the nuclear field are only a legitimate and reasonable response to US unilateralism and European inaction and will continue as long as the illegal acts of the West has not been changed,” Shamkhani said.

And although talks are about to resume, Borrell appears to have downplayed the odds of a quick deal.

“I’m unpredictable… We’re pushing for that. I appreciate the goodwill from the Iranian side. There’s also the goodwill from the US side,” Borrell told a news conference on a website. of the EU.

“Negotiations between Iran, the US and the EU will not take place in Vienna because they will not be 4+1 … they will probably take place somewhere near the Persian Gulf and more specifically in a country in the Persian Gulf,” Borrell was quoted as saying by Iranian media.