European Union negotiators said international talks that resumed Saturday on the Iran nuclear agreement were on track to revive the deal, which crumbled after the United States withdrew in 2018 due to Iranian regional belligerence.
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Senior diplomats from China, Germany, France, Russia, and Britain concluded a 90-minute meeting with Iranian representatives at a hotel in the Austrian capital.
"We are making progress, but the negotiations are intense and a number of issues [remain], including on how steps are to be implemented," EU representative Alain Matton told reporters in Vienna.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas urged all sides to show flexibility and pragmatism in the talks.
"It is about flexibility and pragmatism from all participating parties," he said.
"Playing for time is in no one's interest," he added.
The new round of indirect talks is about how both sides might resume compliance with the old nuclear deal, formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
The United States is not formally part of meetings that launched in Vienna earlier this year. But the administration of US President Joe Biden has signaled willingness to rejoin the deal under terms that would broadly see the US scale back sanctions on Tehran and Iran return to abiding by the limits on its nuclear activity contained in the 2015 agreement.
"The EU will continue with the talks with all the participants... and separately with the United States to find ways to get very close to a final agreement in the coming days," Matton said. The US said on Thursday it had removed sanctions on three former Iranian officials and two companies that previously traded Iranian petrochemicals, a step one US official called routine but that could show US readiness to ease sanctions when justified.
The global oil market is watching the talks closely as additional oil volumes would weigh on prices.
On Friday, meanwhile, Iran regained its vote in the UN General Assembly after the US enabled Tehran to use funds frozen in South Korea to pay some $16 million it owed to the world body.
Iran lost its vote in the 193-member General Assembly in January because it was more than two years in arrears. It owed a total of more than $65 million, but paid the minimum amount needed to regain its vote.
"Iran has paid the minimum amount due," UN spokesman Farhan Haq said on Friday, confirming Iran could vote again.
Iran says $20 billion of its oil revenue has been frozen in countries like South Korea, Iraq and China since 2018 under sanctions imposed by then-US President Donald Trump.
"Illegal US sanctions have not just deprived our people of medicine; they have also prevented Iran from paying our dues in arrears to the UN," Iran's UN Ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi posted on Twitter. "After more than 6 months of working on it, the UN today announced it has received the funds."
Iran was able to vote in the General Assembly on Friday to elect five new members of the UN Security Council.
A spokesperson for the US Treasury Department said on Friday: "The US government typically authorizes the payment of UN dues, including through OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) general licenses and specific licenses."
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