TEHRAN -- Iran and
Russia sounded upbeat about talks on removing sanctions on Tuesday, with Tehran saying an accord was possible if other parties showed “good faith” and a Russian negotiator reporting “indisputable progress.”
Iran and the remaining signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal resumed talks in Vienna on Monday to bring the U.S. back into line and persuade it to remove its inhuman sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
“The Vienna talks are headed in a good direction... We believe that if other parties continue the round of talks which just started with good faith, reaching a good agreement for all parties is possible,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein Amir-Abdollahian told reporters here.
“If they show seriousness, in addition to the good faith, arriving at a deal soon and in the near future is conceivable,” he added.
Russian envoy Mikhail Ulyanov said on Twitter: “We observe indisputable progress... Sanctions lifting is being actively discussed in informal settings” in a working group at the talks.
The seventh round of talks ended 11 days ago after adding new Iranian demands to a working text.
Western powers said the talks had made little discernible progress since they resumed for the first time after Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, was elected in June. They said negotiators had “weeks not months” left before the 2015 deal becomes meaningless.
Little remains of that deal, which lifted sanctions against Tehran in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear energy program. Then-President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of it in 2018, reimposing U.S. sanctions, which made the deal meaningless.
Iran refuses to meet directly with U.S. officials, meaning that other parties to the deal — Russia, China, France, Britain, Germany and the European Union — must shuttle between the two sides.
Amir-Abdollahian said the important point is that the negotiating sides have reached a “unified, joint text,” which is

currently the focus of the Iranian team.
He said the two sides were busy discussing and trying to reach an agreement over the outstanding issues mentioned between parentheses in the text, adding the teams “are working intensively.”
On Monday, Iran’s top negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani said agreeing on an “effective” and “practical” removal of the illegal sanctions is the key to the success of the talks and that all sides agree on the priority of removing the U.S. sanctions.
A senior Chinese envoy on Tuesday stressed the need to expand consensus, patch up differences properly and jointly strive for a new breakthrough in the eighth round of the Vienna talks.
In an interview with the China Central Television (CCTV), Wang Qun said the resumption of the talks during the Christmas and New Year holidays fully reflected the sense of urgency.
Wang said despite different interpretations of the seventh round of negotiations, his country, like most of the participants, believed that the negotiations have achieved positive results.
The parties have forged a new “common text” on nuclear issues and a “common understanding” on the removal of sanctions, he added.
“Lifting sanctions is one of the most important topics in the negotiations. Actually, there are two topics. The first one is how Iran will restrict its nuclear program. The second one is about lifting sanctions,” Wang said.
“The biggest problem lies with the United States because the United States quit the nuclear agreement and we had to renegotiate on how the United States and Iran would resume implementation of the deal. So sanction is still a key issue,” he added.
“The United States has imposed countless sanctions, ranging from primary sanctions to secondary sanctions. So we emphasized at the beginning of the talks that one should have a sense of right and wrong,” the Chinese diplomat said.
“Those who quit the nuclear agreement and imposed sanctions should take steps. This is the goal of the talks. China opposes the U.S. for its move to arbitrarily resort to use of sanctions, and the double standards that the United States adopts on Iran nuclear issue and related nuclear non-proliferation issues,” Wang added.