Berlin Calls for Tehran’s Return to Vienna Talks

Germany asked Iran on Monday to meet its pledge to return later this month to the nuclear talks in Vienna.
“We call on Iran to follow up on what it said about the start of negotiations in November,” German Foreign Ministry deputy spokesman Christofer Burger told journalists in Berlin, according to Anadolu Agency.
He referred to a meeting on the sidelines of the Group of 20 Summit in Rome over the weekend during which the leaders of Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States discussed Iran’s nuclear issue.
Burger said the meeting in Rome showed “the importance we jointly attach to the full restoration of the nuclear deal with Iran.”
US President Joe Biden and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel said they believed it was still possible to quickly reach and implement an understanding on return to full compliance with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
Tehran has agreed to return to the nuclear talks later this month but has not yet set a specific date for the meeting in Vienna.
Berlin has cautioned that time is running out for diplomatic efforts to revive the nuclear deal.
That notwithstanding, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has said he remained upbeat on “a positive conclusion” of the Iran nuclear agreement.
Delegations from the signatories to the deal, namely the UK, France, Germany, Russia and China, launched diplomatic efforts in April to bring Tehran and Washington, which abandoned the deal in 2018, back into its fold.
After the June 18 election victory of Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi, these negotiations in Vienna were suspended.
In the talks, Iran demands that all western sanctions be lifted, while its interlocutors seek to reinstate curbs on Tehran’s nuclear program.