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
Israel agrees to ‘limited reopening’ of Rafah crossing: PM’s office
- The announcement came after visiting US envoys reportedly pressed Israeli officials to reopen the crossing, a vital entry point for aid into Gaza
JERUSALEM: Israel said Monday it would allow a “limited reopening” of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt once it had recovered the remains of the last hostage in the Palestinian territory.
The announcement came after visiting US envoys reportedly pressed Israeli officials to reopen the crossing, a vital entry point for aid into Gaza.
Reopening Rafah forms part of a Gaza truce framework announced by US President Donald Trump in October, but the crossing has remained closed after Israeli forces took control of it during the war.
The Israeli military also said it was searching a cemetery in the Gaza Strip on Sunday for the remains of the last hostage, Ran Gvili, a non-commissioned officer in the police’s elite Yassam unit.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the reopening would depend on “the return of all living hostages and a 100 percent effort by Hamas to locate and return all deceased hostages,” Netanyahu’s office said on X.
It said Israel’s military was “currently conducting a focused operation to exhaust all of the intelligence that has been gathered in the effort to locate and return” Gvili’s body.
“Upon completion of this operation, and in accordance with what has been agreed upon with the US, Israel will open the Rafah Crossing,” it said.
