DUBAI: Iran said on Sunday it will not accept any deadline set by the West to revive its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and wants “politically-motivated” claims by UN watchdog IAEA about Tehran’s nuclear work to be dropped, Iranian state TV reported.
“We have answered the agency’s (IAEA) questions or politically-motivated claims … that we think were baseless. These dossiers should be closed,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh said, according to state TV’s website. “Iran accepts no deadlines.”
Meanwhile, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani will return to Vienna on Sunday for talks on resolving the remaining issues in indirect negotiations with the United States to revive a 2015 deal, the official IRNA news agency reported.
Bagheri Kani, who flew to Tehran last week for consultations with Iranian officials, will “pursue the negotiations with a clear agenda aimed at resolving” the remaining issues, IRNA said.
Nournews, which is affiliated to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council that is in charge of the nuclear talks dossier, said a council meeting stressed “the need to quickly resolve the remaining issues that border between agreement and dead end”.
It did not name the sticking points, but the main remaining disputes appear to include the extent of sanctions rollback and questions about uranium traces found at several old but undeclared sites.
“No restriction on time can prevent the continuation of the talks for a good agreement,” Nournews added.
Iran has made clear it wants an end to the oil and banking sanctions that are hurting its economy, while insisting also on the lifting of human rights and terrorism-related curbs.
— Reuters
