An Austrian police officer stands outside Palais Coburg where closed-door nuclear talks with Iran take place in Vienna on Feb. 28.LEONHARD FOEGER/Reuters
“Bitter experience” with broken U.S. promises has made it inevitable that Iran will push to defend its interests by securing a reliable nuclear deal, its top security official said on Wednesday, according to the Nour-news website.
All parties involved in the talks say progress has been made toward the restoration of a 2015 pact to curb Tehran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief, which the United States abandoned in 2018. But both Tehran and Washington have said there are still some significant differences to overcome.
“Bitter experience with the U.S. breach of promises and European inaction have made it inevitable to meet the requirements for a reliable, balanced and sustainable agreement,” Ali Shamkhani, head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, was quoted as saying at a meeting between the council and Iranian lawmakers.
Despite progress in the negotiations, the key sticking point is that Tehran wants the issue of uranium traces found at several old but undeclared sites in Iran to be dropped and closed forever, an Iranian official told Reuters.
Some alternative solutions have been discussed in protracted talks between Iranian negotiators and Western powers, sources said, without elaborating.
Russia’s envoy to the talks, Mikhail Ulyanov, the most publicly optimistic among the delegation chiefs, told Reuters “we are one minute from the finish line” when asked about Iran’s indirect negotiations with the United States.
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