Iran says talks to revive nuclear deal “are now on the right track”

Iranian Foreign Minister Hosein Amirabdolahian has affirmed that the talks for the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal “are now on the right track” and stressed that Tehran “is working hard to achieve a good, firm and stable agreement.”

“Taking the opportunity to be in New York — on the occasion of the UN General Assembly — more messages were exchanged between the United States and Iran through an intermediary to bring the positions closer in the negotiations,” he has indicated during a conversation with his Qatari counterpart, Mohamed bin Abdulrahman al-Zani.

“We believe that the work is now on the right track. The path of interaction between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) during the visit of the IAEA chief (Rafael Grossi) to the country and the meeting in Vienna is another development,” he has explained, according to a statement published by the Iranian Foreign Ministry on its website.

Grossi confirmed last week the resumption of dialogue with Iran to clarify existing differences between the parties on safeguards, after the agency indicated that it cannot guarantee that Tehran’s nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes in the absence of compliance with various commitments due to the US decision to withdraw in 2018 from the 2015 agreement and reimpose sanctions.

Iranian authorities have rejected on September 8 the latest IAEA report on the situation and stated that “it is a repetition of previous unfounded issues.” Likewise, IAEAI spokesman Behruz Kamalvandi reiterated that Iran’s “peaceful” nuclear program “has been the most transparent so far”.

For its part, Iran presented a counter-proposal to the last text presented by the European Union (EU), which is acting as mediator, to try to reactivate the agreement, although the United States rejected Tehran’s demands and affirmed that it was working on its part on a new document to try to reduce the differences.