Iran N-talks end ... produce ‘final text’

Nods needed

DUBAI, Aug 8, (AP): Talks to revive Tehran’s tattered nuclear accord with world powers in Vienna ended Monday as the parties closed a final text and the Iranian negotiator prepared to return to his capital, diplomats said.

Russian Ambassador Mikhail Ulyanov, who has represented Moscow’s interests in the talks, said the European Union had circulated “the final text” of the agreement to revive the landmark nuclear deal, which granted Iran sanctions relief in exchange for tight curbs on its nuclear program.

The parties “now need to decide if the draft is acceptable for them,” Ulyanov wrote on Twitter. “In case of no objection the nuclear deal will be restored.”

“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 U.S. and the European Union resumed indirect talks over Tehran’s tattered Nuclear deal Thursday after a monthslong 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 U.S., France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China.

Iran’s chief negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani, would shortly fly back to Tehran for consultations, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency said. At the top of Iran’s theocracy is Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who would have the final say on any deal.

The break capped months of delicate, indirect talks over the nuclear deal, which former President Donald Trump abandoned in 2018. In the time since, Iran has massively expanded its nuclear activities.

Also:

TEHRAN: Police in Iran arrested an Afghan man suspected of stabbing 10 other farm laborers to death following a quarrel over land, Iranian state media reported Monday. The rampage in a remote village in southeastern Iran was a rare such incident in the Islamic Republic.

The official IRNA news agency said four Iranians and six Afghans were killed, and one farm worker was wounded in the rampage on Sunday and was in hospital. According to the report, the suspect was mentally unbalanced.

A decades-long drought in Iran has caused increased disputes over water resources and land with better access to water. Hunting rifles are the only weapon that Iranians are allowed to possess legally.

Violent acts have escalated in recent years in Iran as the country’s economic conditions deteriorate amid crushing American sanctions that helped spark soaring inflation and increasing unemployment.

In May, an employee fired from one of Iran’s largest state-owned financial conglomerates went on a shooting rampage at his former workplace in western Iran, killing three people and wounding five before turning the gun on himself.

In 2016, a 26-year-old man gunned down 10 relatives and wounded four others.