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Russian envoy to Tehran believes restoring Iran nuke deal still possible

According to Russian Ambassador to Iran Levan Dzhagaryan, exchanges between Washington and Tehran are continuing, mediated by Brussels

MOSCOW, May 12. /TASS/. There is still a chance to restore the Iran nuke deal, but Tehran will insist on keeping its red lines, Russian Ambassador to Iran Levan Dzhagaryan said during a Rossiya-24 TV broadcast.

"There is always a chance, but the Iranians insist, and quite rightly so, that their red lines be respected," he said.

According to the diplomat, exchanges between Washington and Tehran are continuing, mediated by Brussels. "One of the main stumbling blocks is the issue of Iran's insistence that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps be removed from the sanctions list. Not just the corps itself as a whole, but some of its units, so that everything is considered in a comprehensive way," he added.

"And while there are no meetings on the Vienna platform yet, the exchange of messages between Washington and Tehran continues. As we understand it, [US President Joe] Biden's administration is under a lot of pressure. Not only from Republican opponents, but more and more Democrats are starting to oppose the restoration of the JCPOA," Dzhagaryan noted.

Talks in Vienna between the delegations of Iran and the five international mediators (Russia, the UK, Germany, China and France) to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on the Iranian nuclear program were suspended on March 11. Tehran demanded that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC, an elite unit of the Iranian Armed Forces) be removed from Washington’s sanctions list and the list of foreign terrorist organizations.