Up to 90% Progress Made on New Nuclear Deal, Iranian Foreign Minister Says

ROME (Sputnik) - The negotiators working on the new nuclear deal with Iran have made 90% progress on gaining consent for the draft agreement, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Wednesday.

"The new Iranian government has entered into serious negotiations with its counterparts on the nuclear issue. We came to the draft agreement, which received 90% consent from the 4+1 format [the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia and China], but also from the Americans," the minister said in an interview with Italian newspaper la Repubblica.

Abdollahian added that Iran was in contact with the United States about the lifting of sanctions, and significant progress was made both in the project and in the ideas presented at the negotiations.

One of the obstacles to the completion of the negotiations is the refusal of the US to exclude Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from the list of terrorist organizations, the minister said.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) deal with Iran was signed in 2015 by the United Kingdom, Russia, China, Germany, the United States, France, the European Union and Iran. It imposed restrictions on the advancement of the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of US sanctions. In May 2018, then US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from JCPOA and reimposed sanctions on Iran. Iranian authorities responded with a gradual withdrawal from JCPOA, abandoning restrictions on nuclear research, centrifuges and the level of uranium enrichment.

In December 2021, the sides agreed on two drafts of the new deal, but no definite agreement has been reached. The latest round of JCPOA negotiations took place in Doha, capital of Qatar, from June 29-30.