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Negotiations on a deal to restore the international nuclear agreement with Iran are reportedly inching forward, with Iran saying on Thursday that it was examining the latest proposal.
Iran received a response from the U.S. administration on Wednesday to EU foreign affairs envoy Josep Borrell’s compromise proposal for the text of the agreement.
According to media reports, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said on Thursday that Tehran would now carefully examine the U.S. response and then immediately announce its decision to the EU.
Iran had sent the EU its response to Borrell’s compromise proposal last week and also some proposed amendments to which the U.S. has now responded in turn.
The sides are closer now than we were just a couple of weeks ago, National Security Council communications coordinator John Kirby told reporters in Washington.
“Gaps remain. We’re not there yet,” the Washington Post quoted him as saying.
Representatives of Iran and several countries, including Germany, had tried to reach an agreement at talks in Vienna in early August.
The EU mediated to lift U.S. sanctions and reinstate restrictions on Tehran’s nuclear programme.
These were the original goals of a 2015 pact to prevent Tehran from building nuclear weapons.
The U.S. had left the agreement in 2018 under then President, Donald Trump.
At the end of the talks this month, EU foreign affairs envoy Borrell had stressed that the text for the agreement was now ready and only a yes or no was needed. (dpa/NAN)
