A sixth round of talks aimed at reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal concluded in Vienna today with a breakthrough still elusive. But Iran's deputy foreign minister, who has been leading the Iranian delegation, says the headway made to date gives him hope that an agreement can be reached when they reconvene for the next round of talks.
"In every round of talks we have made progress. Even in this round I think we made good progress," Abbas Araqchi said in the Austrian capital today. "And today, we are closer than ever to an agreement. But gaps still remain and closing those gaps will not be easy."
The negotiations began in the first week of April and have been aimed at reviving the nuclear deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), by bringing both Iran and the US back into full compliance with their respective commitments.
Former US president Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the JCPOA in 2018, and reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran's key banking and oil sectors. Tehran has since responded by scaling back its compliance under the deal.
Araqchi said the delegations participating in the talks – Iran, the UK, France, Germany, Russia, China and the US – would all now return to their respective capitals to allow for more time to consult and "take decisions" before returning to Vienna for a new round of talks.
He did not say when he expected that seventh round would begin but did say that he hoped it would be the last.
"It is now clear what things are possible and what are not — so I think it is now time for all sides…to take their final decisions," he said. "And I hope that in the next round we will be able to close the remaining gaps, however difficult it might be, and reach a final conclusion."
Russia's top envoy to the talks, Mikhail Ulyanov, was equally optimistic saying an agreement was now "within reach" and that the next round "is supposed to be the final round."
New president
The next round, whenever it may come, will be the first to take place since Iran's 18 June presidential election which, as many expected, saw hardline judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi secure a landslide win.
Of the total 28.9mn ballots cast, 61.9pc were for Raisi, according to the interior ministry — enough to see him avoid a second-round runoff. Mohsen Rezaei, his closest rival, secured just 3.4mn votes, or 11.7pc of the total.
With Raisi not set to formally take office until early August, the outgoing administration of Hassan Rohani still has more than a month to get an agreement on the JCPOA over the line.
But even if the negotiations were to require more time and spill over into beginning of Raisi's term, this should not have too much of an impact on the talks because in Iran, the president does not dictate nuclear policy. That is left to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's ultimate decision-maker, who has made clear on numerous occasions his tacit support for the talks.
Raisi, too, has previously signaled his position, saying one of the new administration's "most important duties" would without a doubt be "to lift the oppressive sanctions."
