Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said on Saturday that Tehran is serious about its nuclear talks with world powers in Vienna.
Iranian official news agency IRNA quoted an official as saying, “We are serious about negotiations, and if the other side is also serious about lifting sanctions, we will reach a good agreement. We certainly seek a good agreement.”
On Friday, world powers and Iran continued talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal.
A European source said the parties were working from texts discussed five months ago, while Iranian officials said they were sticking to the tough stance they took last week.
Talks resumed last Thursday, at a time when the United States and Israel intensified pressure on Tehran , threatening economic or military consequences if diplomacy failed.
Iran’s chief negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani, said his country is committed to the position it announced last week when talks broke up with European and American officials, who accused it of making new demands and reversing the compromises reached earlier in the year.
Asked if there was discussion about the new proposals made by Iran last week, Bagheri Kani told The Eastern Herald: “Yes, the drafts that we proposed last week are now being discussed in meetings with other parties.”
Bagheri Kani said, last week, that “it is possible to negotiate all the issues that were drafted in the previous negotiations until June.”
A European source, who asked not to be named, told The Eastern Herald that Iran appeared to have agreed to continue talks from where they left off in June.
He said this would be tested in the next few days, but he gave no indication of Iran’s new proposals. The Iranians denied this.
Under the 2015 agreement between Iran and six world powers, Tehran scaled back its nuclear program in exchange for easing US, European, and United Nations sanctions.
Iran wants to lift all sanctions imposed by the United States after former US President Donald Trump announced his country’s withdrawal from the agreement in 2018 . Iran began violating the nuclear restrictions of the agreement nearly a year after Washington withdrew from the agreement.
