Teheran agrees to resume nuke talks

TEHERAN－Iran has agreed to resume talks aimed at reviving the Iran nuclear agreement by the end of November, wrote Iran's nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani in a tweet on Wednesday, after his meeting with European Union mediators in Brussels.

"We had a very serious and constructive dialogue with Enrique Mora on the essential elements for successful negotiations," wrote Bagheri Kani, who is also Iran's deputy foreign minister.

"We agreed to start negotiations before the end of November. The exact date would be announced next week."

Mora, deputy secretary-general of the European External Action Service, visited Teheran earlier this month and held "good and constructive" talks with Bagheri Kani, according to the Iranian Foreign Ministry.

Six rounds of talks aimed at reviving the 2015 international agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, with regard to a strict monitoring of Iran's nuclear program and the lifting of sanctions on Iran, were held in Austria's capital Vienna between April and July this year, but were put on hold due to Iran's presidential election.

The United States, during the administration of former president Donald Trump, unilaterally withdrew from the deal in May 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Iran.

'Serious will'

Later on Wednesday, Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian urged US President Joe Biden to show "serious will" to return to the agreement.

"Based on the statements made by US officials in New York, we are assuming that Biden has good faith," said Abdollahian, Iran's chief diplomat, at a news conference in Teheran on Wednesday evening.

Abdollahian said he had asked the US to release part of Iranian assets frozen in foreign banks under the pressure of US sanctions as a show of "true will".

"I personally think that if Biden has a serious will, he has to manifest this will so we can believe that the Americans are really serious concerning the lifting of the sanctions," Iran's foreign minister said.

After Bagheri Kani announced that Teheran was ready to return to nuclear negotiations, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said administration officials were waiting for European officials to confirm that Iran is indeed ready to resume talks.

"I would leave to the negotiators to determine when the next round of discussions will be,"Psaki said. "Our framing continues to be compliance for compliance, and we'll leave it up to the Europeans and our negotiators to determine when the next step would be."

Psaki said the US and its partners still want a diplomatic solution, but White House officials say they are considering alternatives, although a decision will be dependent on Iran's actions. Biden is set to travel to Rome later this week for the Group of 20 summit, where he is expected to consult with allies about the Iran nuclear program on the margins of the summit.

Xinhua - Agencies