Iran says nuclear talks can be concluded if other party shows necessary will

TEHRAN - Iran said on Monday the negotiations on the revival of a 2015 nuclear deal and removal of the sanctions on the country could soon be concluded if the other party in the talks had the necessary will.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani made the remarks at a weekly press conference in Tehran while commenting on the latest developments in the "sanctions removal talks" between Tehran and world powers.

Kanaani stressed that Iran was committed to the negotiating table and maintained that "if the other party has the necessary political will, the conducted negotiations can be concluded in the shortest time possible, so that all sides, especially those that had unilaterally refrained from fulfilling their obligations, return to their commitments within the deal's framework."

Reacting to recent remarks by the United States about Iran's nuclear program, he stressed that Tehran was cooperating completely with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and collaborations between the two sides were continuing to answer a number of questions and resolve certain ambiguities about the country's nuclear program.

Kanaani said Iran's "peaceful" nuclear program was progressing within the framework of the country's rights and obligations stipulated under the safeguards agreement with the IAEA.

In a recent statement at a quarterly meeting of the IAEA's Board of Governors, the United States called on Iran to "dilute all the uranium it has enriched to up to 60 percent purity", which Washington says is "close to the weapons-grade level of roughly 90 percent".

Iran signed the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), with world powers in July 2015, agreeing to put some curbs on its nuclear program in return for removing sanctions on the country. The United States, however, pulled out of the deal in May 2018 and reimposed its unilateral sanctions on Tehran, prompting the latter to drop some of its nuclear commitments.

The talks on the revival of the JCPOA began in April 2021 in Vienna, Austria. Despite several rounds of talks, no significant breakthrough has been achieved since the end of the last round in August 2022.