Western envoys scrambling to wrap up nuclear talks with Iran

 Vienna — Negotiators at indirect talks between Iran and the UN on rescuing the 2015 Iran nuclear deal have weeks not months to reach an agreement, European powers and the talks’ co-ordinator said, as negotiations adjourned on Friday for at least 10 days.

The talks have made little discernible progress since they resumed more than two weeks ago for the first time since Iran’s hardline president, Ebrahim Raisi, was elected in June.

Tehran’s envoys have sought sweeping changes to the outline of an agreement that had taken shape in six previous rounds of talks, leaving the negotiations largely deadlocked while Western powers warn ever more loudly that time is running out to rein in Iran's fast-advancing nuclear activities.

“We don’t have months, we rather have weeks to have an agreement,” EU envoy Enrique Mora told a news conference after a meeting that formally ended the seventh round of talks. He said he hoped they would resume in 2021, while some officials have mentioned December 27 as a tentative date.

Officials said Iran had requested the break, while Western powers had planned on staying until Tuesday.

Mora said all sides had incorporated Iran’s demands into the existing text so as to have a common basis for negotiation, but the three West European powers that signed the 2015 deal sounded less optimistic.

“We hope that Iran is in a position to resume the talks quickly, and to engage constructively so that talks can move at a faster pace,” negotiators from France, Britain and Germany, the so-called E3, said in a statement, adding: “We are rapidly reaching the end of the road for this negotiation.”  

Reuters