Time, place of next round of nuclear talks being settled

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The time and venue for the next phase of negotiations between Iran and the US have been discussed in Doha and are being finalized, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator said on Sunday.

“The continuation of the talks is based on the agreement between us and the other party,” Iranian state media quoted Ali Bagheri Kani as saying.

“The time and place of the next negotiations are included in the exchanges between us and Mr. [Enrique] Mora and are being finalized,” he added, referring to the two-day long indirect talks between him and EU negotiator Enrique Mora held in Doha on Tuesday with the aim of reviving the nuclear deal.

Iran and world powers, including the US, have held talks for over a year aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), with Iran insisting that the US must lift its crippling sanctions, including those on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and to provide a guarantee that future US administrations will not be able to withdraw from the deal.

The accord offered Iran sanctions relief in exchange for the curtailment of its nuclear program. Former US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the deal in 2018 and imposed biting sanctions on Tehran.

US President Joe Biden is embarking upon the process of rolling back on his former's withdrawal, as he attempts to return to the deal. However, talks have yielded little result.

The talks between Tehran and Washington in Doha were indirect and EU-mediated as the two countries do not have diplomatic relations.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on Thursday deemed the recent talks with the US as “positive”, claiming that an agreement between the two countries can be reached if Washington is “serious”.

However, the US stated otherwise with the State Department saying the talks made “no progress.”