Negotiators see signs of progress in Iran nuclear talks
BERLIN (AP) — Diplomats working in Vienna on a solution to bringing the United States back into the nuclear deal with Iran and world powers are taking a break from talks to consult with their leaders amid continued signs of progress, Russia's delegate said Tuesday.
Mikhail Ulyanov said after a meeting of the deal's so-called Joint Commission of senior officials with representatives from France, Germany, Britain, China and Iran that they had noted "with satisfaction of the progress in negotiations to restore the nuclear deal."
“It was decided to take a break to allow the delegations to do homework and consult with the capitals,” he tweeted. “The Commission will meet again early next week.”
The U.S. unilaterally pulled out of the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, in 2018 under then President Donald Trump, who said it needed to be renegotiated. Consequently, Washington has not been at the table for the Vienna talks, but an American delegation is in the Austrian capital and representatives of the other powers have been shuttling between it and the Iranian delegation.
The ultimate goal of the deal is to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb, something it insists it doesn’t want to do. Iran now has enough enriched uranium to make a bomb, but nowhere near the amount it had before the nuclear deal was signed, and President Joe Biden has said he wants to bring the U.S. back into the pact.
The two major issues being negotiated are the rollback of American sanctions imposed by Trump's administration after the withdrawal from the deal, and the return of Iran to compliance with the restrictions imposed by the JCPOA on its nuclear program. Iran has been steadily violating them to pressure the remaining signatories to the deal, so far unsuccessfully, to come up with economic...
