Iran met European Union mediator Enrique Mora in Qatar as part of efforts to revive its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, as Tehran and Washington seek to cool tensions with a mutual “understanding” to help end the standoff.
Iranian and Western officials, who have failed to revive a deal in indirect talks that have stalled since September, have met repeatedly in recent weeks to outline steps that could curb Iran’s rapidly advancing nuclear work, free some American and European detainees held in Iran and release some of them. Iranian assets abroad.
“(I) had a serious and constructive meeting with Mora in Doha. We exchanged views and discussed a number of issues, including talks on lifting sanctions,” Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani said on Twitter.
Bagheri Kani said last week that he had met his British, German and French counterparts in the United Arab Emirates to discuss “a range of issues and mutual concerns”.
The 2015 deal curbed Iran’s disputed uranium enrichment activities to make it harder for Tehran to develop the means to produce nuclear weapons, in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions against Tehran.
But then-U.S. President Donald Trump left the pact in 2018, calling it too lenient on Iran, and reimposed sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy.
Tehran responded by gradually moving far beyond the enrichment pact’s limits, reigniting US, European and Israeli fears that it might pursue a nuclear bomb. The Islamic Republic has long denied seeking to weaponize the enrichment process, saying it is only seeking nuclear power for civilian purposes.
The meeting between Bagheri and Mora in the Qatari capital of Doha came days after Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters such as nuclear dossiers, said a new nuclear deal with the West was possible.
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