TEHRAN -- Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein Amir-Abdollahian says reaching a good agreement is possible in the ongoing sanctions removal talks in Vienna if the Western side possesses the required goodwill.
The talks are on the right track, the top diplomat told his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
“Iran possesses the required will for reaching a good agreement,” he said. “We can reach a good agreement if the Western side is likewise in possession of such a good faith and will,” Amir-Abdollahian added.
Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Baqeri-Kani also said participants in the talks were heading forward and making progress.
The two sides were resolving outstanding issues and differences among the negotiating parties were narrowing, he said.
Speaking on Friday, France’s foreign minister struck a positive tone concerning the talks, saying progress had been made in the negotiations.
Jean-Yves Le Drian said he remained convinced that the parties to the talks could reach a deal.
On Sunday, Tasnim news agency cited what it described as a source close to the Iranian team as saying that a report claiming a two-year deal between the two sides was fabricated.
The report of an interim agreement having been reached between the two sides is “utterly false and fake”, it said.
London-based Rai al-Youm daily had claimed that Iran and the opposite side had completed a two-year deal in Vienna, by which the US would remove all sanctions on Iran and all of Iran’s enriched uranium would be shipped to Russia.
Russian chief negotiator to the Vienna negotiations Mikhail Ulyanov said Moscow shares Tehran’s view about narrowing differences during the ongoing talks in the Austrian capital but emphasized that more time and effort are needed to achieve a desired result.
“We share this assessment. Progress is being made. But achieving the desired solution will require additional time and effort,” Ulyanov, who also serves as the Russian ambassador to international organizations in Vienna, tweeted.