EU Top Envoy to Iran Nuclear Talks Says Confident Deal Will Be Reached

Deputy Secretary General of the European External Action Service (EEAS), Enrique Mora, speaks to the media outside a hotel, during a meeting of the JCPOA Joint Commission, in Vienna, Austria, May 19, 2021. (Reuters)
Deputy Secretary General of the European External Action Service (EEAS), Enrique Mora, speaks to the media outside a hotel, during a meeting of the JCPOA Joint Commission, in Vienna, Austria, May 19, 2021. (Reuters)
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EU Top Envoy to Iran Nuclear Talks Says Confident Deal Will Be Reached

Deputy Secretary General of the European External Action Service (EEAS), Enrique Mora, speaks to the media outside a hotel, during a meeting of the JCPOA Joint Commission, in Vienna, Austria, May 19, 2021. (Reuters)
Deputy Secretary General of the European External Action Service (EEAS), Enrique Mora, speaks to the media outside a hotel, during a meeting of the JCPOA Joint Commission, in Vienna, Austria, May 19, 2021. (Reuters)

The EU official leading talks to revive Iran's nuclear deal said on Wednesday he was "quite sure" an agreement would be reached as the negotiations adjourned for a week.

The talks resumed in Vienna on May 7 with the remaining parties to the deal - Iran, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany - meeting in the basement of a luxury hotel, and the United States based in another hotel across the street.

Iran has refused to hold direct talks with the United States on how to resume compliance with the deal, which former President Donald Trump abandoned in 2018, prompting Tehran to begin violating its terms about a year later.

"I am quite sure that there will be a final agreement... I think we are on the right track and we will get an agreement," Enrique Mora, who is coordinating indirect talks between Iran and the United States, told reporters at the end of a fourth round of negotiations in Vienna.

Russia's envoy, Mikhail Ulyanov, said on Twitter that participants felt there had been good progress after the latest round and that a deal was "within reach". Ulyanov said he hoped that next week would be the final round.

Asked if he was saying there would be a deal in the next round, Mora said: "I cannot venture such a prediction. What I can venture is that there will be an agreement, yeah, sure."

'Good' progress
Ahead of the meeting, Iran's top nuclear negotiator Abbas Araqchi told Iranian state TV there had been "good" progress in the talks but "several key issues needed further discussions".

The crux of the original agreement was that Iran committed to rein in its nuclear program to make it harder to obtain the fissile material for a nuclear weapon in return for relief from US, EU and UN sanctions.

"An agreement is shaping up. Now a common understanding on what still needed for US return to #JCPOA, lifting of related sanctions and the resumption of nuclear commitments by Iran," Mora said on Twitter, referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Officials have said they hope to reach a deal by May 21, when an agreement between Tehran and the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog, on continued monitoring of some Iranian nuclear activities is due to expire.

Mora said Iran was continuing to negotiate with the IAEA on extending that agreement.



Iran Sentences 3 to Death over Nuclear Scientist Killing

Fakhrizadeh was killed when his car was ambushed on a highway outside the capital in November 2020. (Reuters)
Fakhrizadeh was killed when his car was ambushed on a highway outside the capital in November 2020. (Reuters)
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Iran Sentences 3 to Death over Nuclear Scientist Killing

Fakhrizadeh was killed when his car was ambushed on a highway outside the capital in November 2020. (Reuters)
Fakhrizadeh was killed when his car was ambushed on a highway outside the capital in November 2020. (Reuters)

Iran has sentenced three people to death over the 2020 assassination of one of the country's top nuclear scientists, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the judiciary said on Tuesday.

"The judicial processes of these three people were carried out in the Revolutionary Court of Urmia, and they were sentenced to death in the initial stage, and the case is currently in the appeal stage," judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir told a Tehran press conference.

Fakhrizadeh was killed when his car was ambushed on a highway outside the capital in November 2020, in an attack Iran blamed on its sworn enemy Israel.

"After some investigations, three people out of eight arrested in West Azarbaijan province, were accused of committing espionage for the occupying regime of Israel," Jahangir said.

He added that the three are also "accused of transporting equipment into Iran for the assassination of martyr Fakhrizadeh under the guise of smuggling alcoholic beverages".

In December 2022, then judiciary spokesman Massoud Setayeshi said nine people had been charged with the capital offence of "corruption on earth" for their suspected collusion with Israel in the assassination.

Fakhrizadeh had been under US sanctions for his role in Iran's nuclear program when he was killed.

Iranian authorities said the attackers used a bomb and a remote-controlled machine gun.

Israel has never commented on the killing.

In 2018, the Israeli government accused Fakhrizadeh of leading Iran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb, a claim Iran has always vehemently denied.