Iran says talks on N-deal to resume ‘soon’

NEW YORK:Iran will return to negotiations on resuming compliance with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal “very soon,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian told reporters on Friday. Speaking on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, the foreign minister also described conversations between Iranian and Saudi officials as “constructive” and he said Tehran had put forward dynamic proposals towards achieving peace in Yemen.

Concluded in 2015, the nuclear deal offered Tehran relief from Western and UN sanctions in exchange for Tehran’s commitment to never acquire nuclear weapons and to drastically reduce its nuclear activities, under the strict control of the UN. But then US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew his country from the deal in 2018 and ramped up sanctions, provoking Iran into suspending most of its nuclear commitments.

Talks between Iran and the remaining five parties aimed at reviving the deal began in Vienna in April but have been suspended since June, when ultraconservative Ebrahim Raisi was elected president.

The US — under Trump’s successor President Joe Biden — has participated indirectly in those talks, which seek to bring Washington back inside the agreement and lift the sanctions on Iran. Hopes of reviving the deal were kept alive earlier this month when Iran agreed to a new compromise with the UN nuclear agency on the monitoring of its nuclear facilities.