WASHINGTON: The United States on Wednesday urged Iran to show “good faith” and quickly revive a nuclear deal after the clerical state indicated it would return to negotiations in Vienna next month.
Iran's nuclear negotiator said after talks with European Union mediators in Brussels that Tehran had agreed to resume talks in Vienna next month. These discussions had been on hiatus since June.
"We are prepared to return to Vienna, and we believe that it remains possible to quickly reach and implement an understanding on return to mutual full compliance" with the 2015 nuclear deal, a State Department spokesperson said.
The talks should focus on "closing the small number of issues that remained outstanding at the end of the sixth round of talks in June," he said.
"As we have also been clear, this window will not remain open forever as Iran continues to take provocative nuclear steps, so we hope that they come to Vienna to negotiate quickly and in good faith."
President Joe Biden has repeatedly offered to return to the nuclear accord reached in 2015 but his administration has voiced growing frustration at the prolonged delay, which comes as a new hardline government gets settled in Tehran.
Then president Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the deal in 2018 and imposed sweeping sanctions, leading Iran to step up contested nuclear work in protest.
US urges Iran to show ‘good faith’ in talks resumption
https://arab.news/z7urw
US urges Iran to show ‘good faith’ in talks resumption
- Iran's negotiator said after talks with EU mediators in Brussels that Tehran had agreed to resume talks
- “This window will not remain open forever as Iran continues to take provocative nuclear steps”: State Department
Somali president visits city claimed by breakaway region
MOGADISHU: Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on Friday visited a provincial capital claimed by the breakaway region of Somaliland -- the first visit there by a sitting president in over 40 years.
The visit to Las Anod, the administrative capital of the Sool region, comes amid heightened diplomatic tensions in the Horn of Africa after Israel officially recognised Somaliland, drawing strong opposition from Mogadishu.
Mohamud was attending the inauguration of the president of the newly created Northeast State, which became Somalia's sixth federal state in August.
It was the first visit by a Somali president since 1984.
Somalia is a federation of semi-autonomous states, some of which have fraught relations with the central government in Mogadishu.
The Northeast State comprises the regions of Sool, Sanaag and Cayn, all territories Somaliland claims as integral to its borders.
Somaliland had controlled Las Anod since 2007 but was forced to withdraw in 2023 after violent clashes with Somali forces and pro-Mogadishu militias left scores dead.
Mohamud's visit "is a symbol of strengthening the unity and efforts of the federal government to enforce the territorial unity of the Somali country and its people", the Somali president's office said.
