Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein Hussein Abdullahiyan and EU High Representative for Foreign Relations Josep Borrell announced that indirect nuclear talks between Iran and the United States will resume soon.
Stating that he had a “long but positive meeting” with the EU Security and Foreign Relations High Representative Josep Borrell in Tehran, Abdullahiyan said, “We are ready to start the talks again in the coming days. “What’s important for Iran is to see the full economic benefits of the 2015 deal again,” he said.
The EU, which coordinates the negotiations, invited the foreign ministers representing the parties to the nuclear agreement to Vienna last March to reveal a final agreement after 11 months of indirect talks between Tehran and the Biden administration.
This development had raised hopes for a revival of the nuclear deal, but talks stalled as Tehran insisted on a request from Washington to remove Iran’s Revolutionary Guard from its list of terrorist organisations.
“We expect to restart talks and overcome the stalemate in the coming days,” Borrell said at a press conference in Tehran. Three months have passed and we must step up the work. “We are very happy with the decision taken in Tehran and Washington,” he said.
“There are still two issues waiting to be resolved”
Two officials, one from Iran and the other from Europe, told Reuters before Borrell’s visit that two issues still await resolution, one related to sanctions. The Iranian Foreign Ministry neither confirmed nor denied this statement.
“Through my team, we agreed to resume talks between Iran and the United States in the coming days to resolve any remaining issues,” Borrell wrote on Twitter.
Former US President Donald Trump withdrew his country from the international nuclear deal with Iran in 2018. The deal included the relaxation of economic sanctions in exchange for Iran curbing its nuclear program.
After the US withdrew from the agreement, Iran started to step back from its obligations imposed by the agreement about a year later.