Iran.- A prominent diplomat from the European Union went on Sunday to Tehranaccording to Iranian state media, amid hopes that an agreement could be reached to restore the battered Iranian nuclear deal with international powers.
The meeting between the envoy of the European Union, Enrique Moraand high-ranking Iranian officials came at a sensitive time in the negotiations, and there seemed to be scope for resolving some of the thorny issues in the talks.
The report on the meetings in Tehran gave few details other than that the diplomats had discussed the latest developments on the nuclear dealand Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani, reiterated that Tehran believed there were chances of reaching a deal if United States he was “realistic” in his demands.
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Former US President Donald Trump has left the nuclear deal in 2018 and reimposed harsh sanctions on Iran. Tehran gradually broke the terms of the agreement with a huge expansion of its nuclear activity.
Negotiations were suspended this month as last-minute details were discussed in Vienna, as the meetings coincided with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Western financial sanctions on Moscow.
But several officials have been optimistic afterwards. Russia appeared to withdraw its initial demand that its trade with Iran be exempt from Western sanctions.
And for the first time, the top Iranian diplomat made a public show of flexibility in demanding Tehran that Washington stop classifying the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, its powerful paramilitary force, as a foreign terrorist organization.
The prospect of that designation being withdrawn had alarmed allies of United States in the Middle East, such as Israel, which strongly opposed the original nuclear deal and claimed that lifting sanctions on the Revolutionary Guards would give strength to Iranian-backed armed groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.
In a visible sign of growing anxiety in the region over a new nuclear dealthe Israeli government hastily arranged an unprecedented summit of senior diplomats from Arab countries that have normalized relations with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
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“We are both committed, determined that Iran will never acquire a nuclear weapon,” Blinken said alongside the Israeli foreign minister, in an effort to reassure concerned interlocutors ahead of the meeting.
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