Iran and EU delegations move to Vienna ahead of resumption of nuclear talks

The Iranian government has confirmed Wednesday that its delegation to the talks on the reactivation of the nuclear agreement will travel during the day to Vienna, where the European Union negotiator on the 2015 nuclear agreement, Enrique Mora, is also moving in view of the reactivation of the contacts.

“On the way to Vienna to discuss the return to full implementation of the nuclear agreement on the basis of the text presented on July 20 by the coordinator,” Mora said on his account on the social network Twitter, referring to the latest proposal presented by the EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, Josep Borrell. “Extremely grateful to the Austrian authorities,” he added.

Immediately after, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Naser Kanani has indicated that “within the framework of the policy to remove oppressive sanctions against the country, the negotiating team headed by Ali Baqeri will leave in a few hours for Vienna.”

“In this round of talks, which will be held as before with the coordination of the EU, there will be a discussion and exchange of views on the ideas put forward by the parties, including those put forward by Iran, which were sent this week to the other side,” he has explained.

Finally, Kanani has reiterated Iran’s willingness to reach a “lasting” agreement that “guarantees the rights and interests” of the country, while expressing his wish that the other parties work “effectively”, take the “necessary decisions” and “seriously focus on resolving the outstanding issues”.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman himself said on Monday that he was open to the resumption of contacts for the reactivation of the nuclear agreement and defended that this is the “logical and rational path” to achieve a “sustainable” pact. He also applauded the new text recently presented by Borrell to try to unblock the talks process.

Hours earlier, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), Mohamad Eslami, had assured that Tehran has the technical capabilities to build an atomic bomb, although he reiterated that it is not among his plans to go ahead with the project.

Iran has announced the withdrawal of its commitments on several points of the 2015 nuclear deal after the United States unilaterally pulled out of the pact in 2018, although Iranian officials have defended that these steps can be reversed if the United States withdraws sanctions and returns to the agreement.