“We are close to an agreement in the negotiations,” he said in a telephone interview with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, according to a statement from Iranian Foreign Affairs.
The ball in Washington’s court
“We have conveyed to the American side via the European Union (EU) negotiator our proposals on the outstanding issues, and the ball is now in the United States’ court,” the Iranian diplomat said.
Iran is negotiating in the Austrian capital with China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom and Germany to revive the 2015 international agreement supposed to prevent the Islamic Republic from acquiring the atomic bomb, an objective denied by Tehran, in exchange for the lifting of sanctions that are suffocating its economy.
The 2015 agreement fell apart after the unilateral withdrawal in 2018 of the United States, under the presidency of Donald Trump, followed by the restoration of sanctions against Iran, which, in response, gradually freed itself from the limits imposed to its nuclear program.
Tricky Questions
The current American president, Joe Biden, wants to return to the agreement provided that Tehran also renews with its commitments. The United States participates indirectly in the Vienna negotiations, via the EU which coordinates the talks. The discussions made it possible to remove most of the obstacles but still come up against certain thorny issues.
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