French, Iranian Foreign Ministers Express Guarded Optimism on Nuclear Talks

The French foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said Friday that “bits of progress have been made in the last few days” in talks between Iran and the world powers on salvaging the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. “We have been heading in a positive direction in the last few days,” he said in an interview broadcast on France’s BFM TV and Radio Monte-Carlo, “but time is of the essence because if we don’t get an accord quickly there will be nothing to negotiate.” Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, in an interview with Al-Jazeera on Thursday, also sounded optimistic that a deal could be reached, but said that this was conditioned on Washington lifting all sanctions on the Islamic Republic and guaranteeing that it would not pull out of a future deal. Indirect talks between Iran and the US resumed on Monday. Iran refuses to meet directly with American officials since then-US President Donald Trump pulled out of the deal in 2018, accusing Iran of violations, and reimposed US sanctions. Iran has since then violated many additional terms of the agreement, including the enrichment of uranium to near weapons-grade levels. This is the eighth round of talks and the first under Iran’s newly elected hard-line president, Ebrahim Raisi.