Zarif has suggested that the JCPOA can be revoked before Raisi takes office Middle East News

The Iranian foreign minister said there was a “good chance” of reaching an agreement in the Vienna talks before the end of the current administration’s term.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has expressed optimism over talks with Vienna to secure the country’s nuclear deal with world powers in Vienna, and has suggested that the deal is possible even before newly elected President Ebrahim Raisi takes office in August.

“There is a good chance of reaching an agreement before the end of our mandate,” Zarif told Al Jazeera’s Semi Zeidan on Saturday at the Antalya Diplomatic Forum session on the same day that Raisi was appointed conservative. winner In the Iranian presidential election.

The 2015 nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Plan Integral Action (JCPOA), was signed to halt Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for easing sanctions.

However, former President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from the deal in 2018 and imposed sanctions on Iran’s economy as part of a “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran. In the face of this, Iran has backed down from key nuclear commitments, leaving the JCPOA hanging by a thread.

Since April, Iran and other signatories – Russia, China, France, Britain, Germany and the European Union – have been trying to find common ways to keep the agreement alive.

“We are in talks right now while we are talking,” Zarif said in Turkey’s Antalya. “The text is getting clearer and clearer. The corks are being removed, ”he added with a smile without providing further details.

Zarif’s optimistic tone contrasted somewhat with the prudence expressed by Russian envoy Mikhail Ulianov on Friday talks in Vienna.

“Difficult and time-consuming issues are still unresolved,” Ulianov said, noting that progress has been made in recent days.

The French Foreign Ministry also said there were still major disagreements on Wednesday.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Ned Price on Thursday reiterated the U.S. view that talks in Vienna have progressed since they began in April but maintained those challenges, saying he could not put “time” when the current round could end.

Hopes to save the JCPOA have risen since Joe Biden rose to the White House in January. The U.S. president wants to revive the deal and extend its terms as well, and numerous indirect US-Iran negotiating rounds have been held.

The talks are not straightforward because Iran refuses to hold a preliminary meeting, but the U.S. has had discussions with many participants.

“Most of our problems are cognitive,” Zarif said at the forum. “The problem is that the United States had to acknowledge that the United States had left the deal with a goal, and that goal was not achieved.

“Now he’s coming back to the deal, so he can’t set goals at the negotiating table that he couldn’t achieve through the economic war. I think it’s a cognitive transformation that the U.S. administration needs to make. And I think we’re getting there, but we’re not there yet.”

Commenting on the elections held in Iran on Friday, Zarif said that the electoral procedures that led Raisi to the presidency must be respected.

“From now on we all have to work in a way, whether we disagree with him or disagree with him, whether we like his policies or whether we don’t like his policies, now people choose him,” he said. .

Raisi, despite his strong opposition to the nuclear deal, pledged to ease sanctions and said the previous administration, including the JCPOA, would respect the state’s commitment.

However, he stated that he intended to form a “strong” government to steer the agreement in the right direction.