DUBAI: Addresses in Vienna on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers have made “ significant progress”, Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Monday.
Independently, Iran’s top security functionary Ali Shamkhani said addresses with European mediators were ongoing and would continue while accommodations with the United States weren’t on the docket because they would not be the source of “ any improvements”.
Circular addresses between Tehran and Washington have been held in Vienna since April amid fears about Tehran’s nuclear advances, seen by Western powers as unrecoverable unless an agreement is struck soon.
While Khatibzadeh said significant progress was made, he also noted that “ nothing is agreed until everything is agreed” in the Vienna addresses. “ The remaining issues are the hardest,” he told a daily press briefing.
Khatibzadeh said that Iran’s top security body, the Supreme National Security Council, handles the Vienna addresses. It reports directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s top authority.
Reuters reported last week that a US-Iranian deal is taking shape in Vienna after months of circular addresses to revive the nuclear pact, which Washington abandoned in 2018 under also- chairman Donald Trump.
The draft textbook of the agreement also indicated to other issues, including unfreezing billions of bones in Iranian finances in South Korean banks, and the release of Western captures held in Iran.
Iran is ready to change captures with the United States, Iran’s foreign minister said on Saturday, adding that addresses to revive the nuclear deal could succeed “ at the foremost possible time” if the United States made the necessary political opinions.
The 2015 deal between Iran and major powers limited Iran’s enrichment of uranium to make it harder for Tehran to develop material for nuclear munitions, in return for a lifting of transnational warrants against Tehran.
Major warrants
In Doha, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said on Monday that addresses in Vienna on reviving Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers can not succeed unless the United States is prepared to lift warrants on the Islamic Republic.
Reuters reported last week that a US-Iranian deal is taking shape in Vienna after months of circular addresses to revive a pact Washington abandoned in 2018 under also-President Donald Trump.
“ The United States must prove its will to lift major warrants,” Raisi said in a common news conference with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani in Doha.
US-Jewish leaders
Meanwhile, Israel is pressing the US about the terms of an arising Iranian nuclear deal, Israeli officers said on Monday, raising the prospect of a bilateral day-after agreement with Washington to address their worries.
While not a party to the nuclear accommodations between Iran and world powers in Vienna, Israel has conferred with the US administration in stopgap of applying further leverage over any reanimation of a 2015 deal with Tehran that was reached over its expostulations.
“ We were unhappy with the deal, to beginwith.and of course, we’re more unhappy with (the arising) deal,” Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid told US-Jewish leaders. — Reuters
