June 18, 2021: Indirect talks between Tehran and Washington on reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal have come closer than ever to an agreement, but essential issues remain to be negotiated, the top Iranian negotiator said on Thursday.
Iran and the six world powers have been holding talks in Vienna since April to take steps for both sides. The United States withdrew from the deal in 2018, under which Iran accepted sanctions on its nuclear program in exchange for lifting several foreign sanctions against it. Al Jazeera television quoted Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi as saying, “We have made good and solid progress on various issues. We are very close to an agreement, but there are still issues to be negotiated.”
Araqchi said Friday’s Iranian presidential election would not affect the talks and that the Iranian negotiating team would continue the talks regardless of national policy. Iran, Russia, China, France, UK, Germany and EU are the remaining parties in the deal.
The sixth round of talks with the other parties resumed on Saturday for a meeting in the basement of a luxury hotel. The US delegation is staying at a street hotel for talks as Iran has refused to hold face-to-face meetings. Since former US President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal and imposed sanctions on Iran, Tehran has embarked on a number of measures, including rebuilding enriched uranium enrichment, a possible route for nuclear bombs. “We want to make sure that when Trump withdraws from the agreement, it will not be repeated by any other US president in the future,” Araqchi told the Pan-Arab Satellite TV Network.
Russia’s envoy Mikhail Ulyanov added a cautionary note to the talks, saying that progress had been made in the past few days but that the talks had been tough. “Some difficult and time-consuming issues are still unresolved,” he said.
The French Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that there were still significant differences of opinion. In Washington, State Department spokesman Ned Price reiterated the US view that the Vienna talks have only progressed since they began in April, but that challenges remain, with no “time frame” for when the current round could end. “I can’t. He declined to say whether Araqchi’s diagnosis or Ulyanov’s diagnosis was more accurate. “We’ve made progress between one and six rounds, but … I don’t want to be overwhelmed by one assessment over another,” he said. Iran’s new president is expected to name his cabinet by mid-August. Incumbent President Hassan Rouhani’s term expires on August 3.
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