Iran said on Monday that there are three outstanding issues that it needs resolved in order to revive the nuclear deal with the world powers. These issues are identifying how far the sanctions would be rolled back, the necessity for guarantees that the United States would not again withdraw from the deal, and resolving questions over trace amounts uranium found at several old but undeclared sites in Iran, Reuters reported, citing Iran’s Foreign Ministry.
“Reaching a good deal is possible … three key issues still remain to be resolved. The U.S. and European powers have not taken political decisions on these major issues,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh said Monday at a weekly news conference. “We believe that we need an appropriate pathway to solve remaining issues in the areas of lifting sanctions, guarantees and political claims that have been levelled against our peaceful civilian nuclear program.”
He said that Iran’s lead nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani returned to Vienna this week after he traveled to Tehran over the weekend for consultations.
His remarks come after Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Saturday that Iran is “seriously reviewing” a rough draft of an updated nuclear agreement with the world powers.
Iran and the world powers have been negotiating a new deal to reinstate the 2015 nuclear agreement that has fallen apart since the United States unilaterally left the deal in 2018. The draft agreement comes after nine rounds of negotiations in Vienna that began in April. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the official name of the nuclear agreement, rolled back sanctions on Iran in return for strict limits on its nuclear activities.