Indirect nuclear talks between Tehran and Washington began today in Doha, with Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator meeting with European Union official Enrique Mora, according to reports in the Iranian media.
Enrique Mora, Deputy Secretary General of the EU Foreign Relations Service, will mediate between the US and Iran during the negotiations.
Iran’s chief negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani and the US special envoy to Iran Rob Malley, who are in separate rooms in a hotel in Doha, the capital of Qatar, are trying to restore efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal that Tehran signed with world powers.
The negotiations, which took place in Vienna before Doha, had been stalemate for months.
Iran refuses to negotiate directly with the United States. For this reason, Mora mediates indirect talks between the two countries.
The nuclear deal looked close to revival last March.
The negotiations, however, stalled, especially when Tehran insisted on Washington to remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guards from the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
Last week, an Iranian and a European official told Reuters news agency that Tehran withdrew its request to lift the Foreign Terrorist Organization sanctions on the Revolutionary Guards. On the other hand, officials noted that two issues, including economic sanctions, are still waiting for a solution in the negotiations.
In 2018, former US President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal, in which Tehran promised to curb its nuclear program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions.
Tehran had begun violating nuclear restrictions nearly a year after Trump pulled out of the deal.