SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Britain said on Sunday that there was still time for Iran to save nuclear deal but that this was the last chance for Iranian negotiators to come to the table with serious proposals.
Talks have resumed in Vienna to try to revive the nuclear pact, with both sides trying to gauge the prospects of success after the latest exchanges in the stop-start negotiations.
“This is the last chance for Iran to come to the negotiating table with a serious resolution to this issue, which has to be agreeing the terms of the JCPOA,” British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said, according to Reuters.
“This is their last chance and it is vital that they do so. We will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.”
On Saturday, German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said time was running out to find a way to revive the nuclear deal between world powers and Iran.
“It has shown in the last days that we do not have any progress,” Baerbock told reporters in Liverpool where G7 foreign ministers are meeting.
Baerbock said Iran had resumed the talks with a position that set the negotiations back six months. The current round of talks in Vienna follows a pause of five months after the election of Ebrahim Raisi as Iran’s president.
Iranian officials have previously said they were sticking to their tough stance. Raisi said on Saturday that Tehran was serious in its nuclear talks in Vienna, the official IRNA news agency reported.
Under the original nuclear deal, abandoned in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump, Iran limited its nuclear programme in return for relief from U.S., European Union and U.N. sanctions. The West fears the programme would be used to develop weapons, something Tehran denies.
The indirect U.S.-Iranian talks, in which diplomats from France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China shuttle between them because Tehran refuses direct contact with Washington, aim to get both sides to resume full compliance with the accord.
