Iran Nuclear Deal Within Reach As Talks End

 

Talks to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal with world powers in Vienna, the capital of Austria, ended on Monday. The diplomats produced a final text, and the Iranian chief negotiator prepared to return to Tehran, the capital of Iran.

Russian Ambassador Mikhail Ulyanov said that the European Union (EU) had circulated “the final text” of the agreement to revive the 2015 deal. The Russian Ambassador wrote on Twitter, “The parties now need to decide if the draft is acceptable for them. In case of no objection, the nuclear deal will be restored.”

Iran’s chief negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani, would shortly fly back to Iran for consultations on this matter. He will talk with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Last week, the officials from Western countries met with an Iranian negotiator in Vienna for the first time since March. The talks started again on Thursday, with the United States urging Iran to take the deal. They met at Vienna’s luxury Palais Coburg hotel under the EU’s representative Enrique Mora.

Earlier, the talks for the revival of the deal were stalled because of the Iranian demand that the US must remove the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) from the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organisations.

Iran signed the nuclear deal in 2015 with the US, France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China.  Under the agreement, Iran said to limit its nuclear activity to civilian purposes, and these six countries agreed to drop their economic sanctions against Tehran. However, the US unilateral exit in 2018 affected the deal. Former US President Donald Trump also reimposed swinging economic sanctions on Iran.

Since April 2021, the EU has made significant efforts to get Iran and the US  back to the negotiation table under the administration of US President Joe Biden. The two countries have held several rounds of discussions on this matter.