Iran agrees to resume talks on Nov 29

TEHERAN－Ali Bagheri Kani, Iran's senior nuclear negotiator, said on Wednesday that the Vienna nuclear talks for the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, will resume on Nov 29.

"In a phone call with Enrique Mora, we agreed to start the negotiations aiming at the removal of unlawful and inhumane sanctions on Nov 29 in Vienna," wrote Bagheri Kani in a tweet.

After meetings between Bagheri Kani and Mora in Teheran and Brussels, Iran and the European Union had agreed on the resumption of talks in November.

Mora, deputy secretary-general of the European External Action Service, led six rounds of talks earlier this year and recently flew to Teheran to seek progress. The EU announced that Mora will again chair the Nov 29 meeting.

Iran has said the issue of lifting sanctions and the related parties' full implementation of obligations to the JCPOA will be the main agenda of the talks which have been suspended since June following a change in Iran's administration.

US President Joe Biden took office hoping to return to the 2015 agreement from which his predecessor Donald Trump bolted.

But the talks earlier this year failed to secure a breakthrough with Iran, which was suspended after the June election of Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi.

'Outstanding issues'

In Washington, State Department spokesman Ned Price said the United States believed it is possible to resolve "quickly" the "relatively small number of issues that remained outstanding at the end of June".

"We believe that if the Iranians are serious, we can manage to do that in relatively short order," Price told reporters.

"But we've also been clear, including as this pause has dragged on for some time, that this window of opportunity will not be open forever."

Trump slapped sweeping sanctions on Iran as he withdrew the US in 2018, leading Teheran to take steps out of compliance with the deal through which it had been drastically scaling back sensitive nuclear work.

Iran wants all US sanctions to be lifted, but the Biden administration said it will only negotiate measures taken by Trump over the nuclear program, such as a unilateral US ban on other nations buying Iranian oil.

Agencies - Xinhua