VIENNA: Top negotiators in renewed talks to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal indicated Sunday that they are optimistic about the possibility of reaching an agreement to impose limits on Tehran’s uranium enrichment.
“We stand 5 minutes or 5 seconds from the finish line,” Russian Ambassador Mikhail Ulyanov told reporters outside Vienna’s Palais Coburg, four days into the talks. He said there are “3 or 4 issues” left to be resolved.
“They are sensitive, especially for Iranians and Americans,” Ulyanov said. “I cannot guarantee, but the impression is that we are moving in the right direction.”
Enrique Mora, the European Union’s top negotiator, also said he is “absolutely” optimistic about the talks’ progress so far.
“We are advancing, and I expect we will close the negotiations soon,” he told Iranian media.
Negotiators from Iran, the US and the European Union resumed indirect talks over Tehran’s tattered nuclear deal Thursday after a months-long standstill in negotiations.
Since the deal’s de facto collapse, Iran has been running advanced centrifuges and rapidly growing its stockpile of enriched uranium.
Iran struck the nuclear deal in 2015 with the US, France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China. The deal saw Iran agree to limit its enrichment of uranium under the watch of UN inspectors in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
Then US President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of the accord in 2018, saying he would negotiate a stronger deal, but that didn’t happen. Iran began breaking the deal’s terms a year later.
Negotiators optimistic about progress on Iran nuclear deal
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Negotiators optimistic about progress on Iran nuclear deal
- Negotiators from Iran, the US and the European Union resumed indirect talks over Tehran’s tattered nuclear deal Thursday after a months-long standstill in negotiations
Macron, Iraqi Kurdish leader urge ‘de-escalation’ in Syria
- The Islamist-led authorities in Damascus are seeking to extend their control over all of Syria, after toppling former president Bashar Assad a little over a year ago
PARIS, France: France’s President Emmanuel Macron and the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, Nechirvan Barzani, in telephone talks on Saturday urged a cessation of fighting in Syria, the French presidency said.
They “called on all parties for an immediate de-escalation and a permanent ceasefire,” it said, after fighting in recent days between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and government troops in the country’s north.
The SDF control swathes of Syria’s oil-rich north and northeast, much of which they captured during the civil war and the battle against the Daesh group.
The Islamist-led authorities in Damascus are seeking to extend their control over all of Syria, after toppling former president Bashar Assad a little over a year ago.
Both sides signed a deal in March last year to merge the semi-autonomous Syrian Kurdish administration and its forces into the new government, but implementation has largely stalled.
Macron and Barzani said they backed “the immediate resumption of talks on integrating the SDF into the Syrian state,” the French presidency added.
