Deputy Foreign Minister of Iran and Iran's chief negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani landed in Vienna Monday for a new round of nuclear talks after holding consultations in Tehran over the weekend.
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However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine could stop whatever progress toward a new nuclear deal has been made in the eight rounds of talks held over the last six months between Iran and the west.
Iran said on Monday efforts to revive a 2015 nuclear deal could succeed if the United States took a political decision to meet Tehran's demands, as months of negotiations enter what one Iranian diplomat called a "now or never" stage.
The stakes are high, since the failure of 10 months of talks would carry the risk of a fresh regional war and the imposition of additional harsh sanctions on Iran by the West.
Iran's foreign ministry spokesman identified the remaining outstanding issues as: the extent to which sanctions would be rolled back, providing guarantees that the United States will not quit the pact again, and resolving questions over uranium traces found at several old but undeclared sites in Iran.
All parties involved in the talks say progress has been made toward the restoration of the pact to curb Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, which the United States abandoned in 2018. But both Tehran and Washington have cautioned that still there are some significant differences to overcome.
"Reaching a good deal is possible ... three key issues still remain to be resolved. The U.S. and European powers have not taken political decisions on these major issues," Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh told a weekly news conference.
France's foreign ministry said on Monday that it was urgent to conclude the talks this week.
Two sources close to the talks in Vienna said that Iran had submitted new demands, while continuing to insist on existing ones, including the removal of a US foreign terrorist organization (FTO) designation against Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).
"Iran's stance after Bagheri's trip to Tehran has become even more uncompromising .... they now insist on removal of sanctions on the IRGC and want to open issues that had already been agreed," one of the sources said.
Diplomats said the negotiations have entered a crucial stage, given Iran's uncompromising policy in the talks and the other parties' involvement in the crisis over Ukraine.
"It is now or never. If they cannot reach a deal this week, the talks will collapse forever," said an Iranian diplomat in Tehran.
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