Talks in Vienna on revive the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers have made “important progress”said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh. on Monday.
Separately, Iran’s top security official official Ali Shamkhani said talks with EU negotiators are ongoing and will continue while negotiations with the United States was not on the agenda because they would not be the source of “all breakthroughs.”
Indirect talks between Tehran and Washington have taken place in Vienna since April amid fears over Tehran’s nuclear advances, seen by Western powers as irreversible unless a deal is struck soon.
While Khatibzadeh said important progress was madeil also noted that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed” in the talks in Vienna. “The remaining issues are the most difficult,” he told a weekly press briefing.
Khatibzadeh said Iran’s top security official body, the Supreme National Security Council, is managing the talks in Vienna. He brings back directly Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s highest authority.
Reuters reported last week it takes for a US-Iran deal shape in Vienna after months of indirect talks to revive the nuclear pact, which Washington abandoned in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump.
The draft text of the deal also hints at other issues, including the unfreezing of billions of dollars in Iranian funds in South Korean banks and liberation of western prisoners held in Iran.
Iran is ready to exchange prisoners with the United States, the foreigner of Iran minister noted on on Saturday, adding that talks to revive the nuclear deal could be concluded “at the earliest possible time” if the United States made the necessary policy decisions.
Iran’s 2015 deal with major powers limited Iran’s enrichment of uranium to make it harder for Tehran to develop material for nuclear weapons, in to return to for a facelift of international punishments against Tehran.
Speaking of Doha on margins of a conference on gas, Iranian oil minister Javad Owji called the sanctions a violation of international law and a menace for global energy security, semi-official tasnim news reports the agency.
Iran has violated some of the nuclear limits of the deal since the US pulled out and reimposed sanctions under Trump.
