Talks to revive Iran nuclear deal to restart within days
- Negotiations were abruptly suspended in March, after a year of erratic efforts to salvage the accord.
Iran’s talks aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear deal with the US will restart in the “coming days,” European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell Fontelles said.
“We will resume the talks on the JCPOA in the coming days, and the coming days mean coming days. I mean, quickly, immediately,” Borrell said in a televised press conference with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian in Tehran. The talks in Vienna are being facilitated by the EU, with indirect participation by the US.
Negotiations were abruptly suspended in March, after a year of erratic efforts to salvage the accord. The 2015 pact placed curbs on Iran’s atomic activities in exchange for easing some economic sanctions. President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the agreement in 2018, and reviving the deal could lead to a flood of Iranian oil returning to global markets and bring some relief from surging crude prices.
The negotiations “have to be finished, three months have passed,” Borrell said.
A chief sticking point has been Iran’s demand for the US to drop the designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization.
Iran’s Amirabdollahian reiterated his call to the Biden administration to take a “realistic and fair” approach to help reach an agreement.
Read More: How an Iran Nuclear Deal Could Affect Oil, Trade and Security
World powers are anxious to seal a return to the deal because in the absence of any constraints, Iran’s engineers have elevated the country’s capacity to quickly enrich uranium to levels close to what would be needed for a nuclear weapon. The country has always maintained its atomic program is peaceful, but the 2015 deal was forged amid suspicions over that claim.
The US pulling out of the Iran accord has increased tensions between the countries. More hardline leadership has since taken power in Tehran and there has been a spate of shipping and drone attacks in the Persian Gulf that has roiled energy markets and at times pushed the two countries close to military conflict.
Less time to read?
Try Quickreads
-
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla tests positive for Covid with mild symptoms
Pfizer Inc. Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla said Bourla tested positive for Covid-19 and is receiving Paxlovid, the treatment made by his company. Bourla said he's feeling well although experiencing very mild symptoms, according to a statement Monday. Bourla said he is “isolating in place as well as following all public health precautions” and that he's confident of a speedy recovery. The New York-based drugmaker declined to comment beyond Bourla's statement.
-
China holds more military drills as US lawmakers meet Taiwanese president
China has carried out fresh military drills near self-governed Taiwan in response to the ongoing visit of US lawmakers to the island as high tension, sparked earlier this month by the visit of US House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to Taipei, continues in the Taiwan Strait. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and says official ties between the island and another country is a violation of the mainland's sovereignty.
-
Ikea shoppers in Shanghai panic after security locks down store on Covid risk
Health authorities in the financial hub said that they imposed “temporary control measures” at the store, after they found out that a close contact of a 6-year-old boy with an asymptomatic Covid infection had been there. They didn’t say when the close contact was in the store.
-
Deposed Myanmar leader Suu Kyi sentenced to 6 more years in prison
Myanmar's deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced to six more years in prison on Monday in a judgment that could further anger supporters of the 77-year-old Nobel peace prize laureate. It's the fourth round of criminal verdicts against Suu Kyi since the military seized power in a 2021 coup and brings her total jail term to 17 years, extinguishing any chance of her staging a political comeback while the junta remain in power.
-
On completion of one year in power, Taliban says, “This day is the day of…”
The Taliban marked a year in power on Monday with small-scale celebrations by the group's fighters as Afghanistan struggles with rising poverty, drought, malnutrition and fading hope among women that they will have a decisive role in the country's future. "This day is the day of the victory of truth over falsehood and the day of salvation and freedom of the Afghan nation," said Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid in a statement.
