Iran is serious in nuclear talks with world powers - president

[December 11, 2021]  (Reuters) -Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said on Saturday that Tehran was serious in its nuclear talks with world powers in Vienna, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Indirect U.S.-Iranian talks to revive a 2015 Iran nuclear deal resumed on Thursday in the Austrian capital. Diplomats from France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China shuttle between the two sides because Tehran refuses direct contact with Washington.

A European source, speaking on condition of anonymity, suggested on Friday that Iran had agreed to continue talks from

where they left off in June. Iranian officials denied this.

Under the original deal that then-U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned in 2018, Iran limited its nuclear programme in return for relief from U.S., European Union and U.N. sanctions.

"The fact that we presented the text of Iran's proposal to the negotiating parties shows that we are serious in the talks, and if the other side is also serious about the removal of [U.S.] sanctions, we will achieve a good agreement. We are definitely after a good agreement," IRNA quoted Raisi as saying.

A year after Trump's reimposition of sanctions on Iran, Tehran began to gradually violate nuclear limits of the
agreement. Iran wants all sanctions to be lifted.

Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi looks on during a meeting with Syria's Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad in Tehran, Iran, December 6, 2021. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

Iran's top negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani, told Reuters on Friday that Tehran was standing firm on the position it laid out last week, when the talks broke off. European and U.S. officials accused Iran of making new demands and of reneging on compromises worked out earlier this year.

Asked whether new draft proposals that Iran had put forward last week were being discussed, Bagheri Kani said: "Yes, the drafts we proposed last week are being discussed now in meetings with other parties."

A senior European Union official said on Friday the talks were moving forward and that various key matters were still open for a deal on a final text.

(Editing by Ros Russell)

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