Iran nuclear deal 'in sight' as talks resume

With guarded optimism, Teheran stresses outcome hinges on US action

VIENNA－Talks to revive a nuclear deal with Iran resumed on Tuesday in the Austrian capital, Vienna, amid signals from officials that an agreement is "in sight".

The negotiations on reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA－attended by Britain, China, France, Germany, Iran, Russia and indirectly the United States－were halted at the end of last month for diplomats to return to their capitals to get further instructions.

Ahead of the talks, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Monday that the US' response will determine when an agreement can be reached.

"We have made significant progress in various areas of the Vienna negotiations," including on guarantees sought by Iran that the US would not breach the deal once again, Khatibzadeh told reporters.

On Tuesday, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani tweeted that since Iran's economic and technological sectors are integrated, the removal of sanctions should apply across the board.

Otherwise, he noted, it would be impossible for Iran to reap economic benefits from the nuclear deal, as experience has shown.

The US administration has failed to reach its goal via imposing "maximum pressure" sanctions, and as long as Washington harbors the illusion that "unsupported promises" would work, the path to achieving an agreement in the Vienna talks will not be smooth, Shamkhani said in a separate tweet.

A spokesman for the US State Department said on Monday that a deal that addresses all sides' core concerns is "in sight".

Sticking points

But sticking points remain, according to a US nuclear expert.

Speaking in Washington, the European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said: "There is a US offer, there is a counteroffer."

"I don't know if it's going to be one week, two weeks, three weeks, but certainly we are in the last steps of the negotiation," Borrell said.

Russian negotiator Mikhail Ulyanov told the Russian newspaper Kommersant that the parties were "five minutes away from the finish line".

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called it "the decisive moment" in an interview with The Washington Post published on Monday.

Wang Qun, China's permanent representative to the United Nations in Vienna, said on Tuesday that China supports Iran's principled position of seeking a resolution of the Iran nuclear issue through negotiations.

Wang spoke favorably of a package proposed by the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany and the recent waiver of US sanctions on Iran's civil nuclear program, calling them "a positive step" toward a final deal.

On Friday, Washington made a gesture by announcing it was waiving sanctions on Iran's civil nuclear program, a technical step necessary to return to the deal.

Wang also expressed the hope that Iran will "formally come up with its written feedback on the proposed package for discussion by all parties".

He urged all parties to cherish the hard-won progress achieved in the negotiations and focus on issues such as the lifting of sanctions and economic guarantees.

The JCPOA was signed in 2015 between Iran and the five permanent members of the Security Council, plus Germany and the European Union. Then US president Donald Trump unilaterally pulled Washington out of the pact in May 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Iran.

Xinhua - Agencies