US, Iran give conflicting updates progress of nuclear talks 

There are conflicting reports about whether or not a new deal has been agreed regarding Iran’s nuclear capabilities with Washington claiming an agreement will be signed within days.

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said at a press briefing: “Our view is that we are close,” the Washington Times reported.

She indicated the possibility of reaching an agreement on the nuclear deal with Tehran in the coming days.

Psaki added: “We have been close for some time now. We also know from having been through these negotiations before that the end of the negotiations is always when the difficult and challenging parts of the conversation typically take place.”

Her statement, however, contradicted Tehran’s position, as the Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, announced earlier yesterday that negotiations to revive the nuclear agreement with major powers “are getting knottier by the hour.”

READ: Iran suggests new obstacles hinder nuclear deal after Russian interruption

Diplomats from Iran, the US, and five other countries have been negotiating for months in Vienna a deal to reimpose restrictions on Tehran’s nuclear programme in exchange for lifting the economic sanctions that former US President Donald Trump placed after Washington withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal.

Last Saturday, the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran announced that it had reached an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to resolve issues related to the nuclear programme, as part of the efforts to revive the 2015 agreement.

The head of the organisation, Mohammad Eslami, said in a joint press conference with the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, in Tehran that Iran has agreed to provide the agency with documents related to outstanding issues by mid-June.

The nuclear agreement signed by Iran with the US, France, Britain, China, Russia and Germany in 2015, imposed restrictions on Tehran’s nuclear programme to prevent the production of nuclear weapons, in return for lifting international sanctions.