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Iran ready to return to talks on nuclear program — ambassador

"This is an international agreement and we still adhere to it," Mohammad Reza Sabouri said

ROME, November 7. /TASS/. Iran is ready to return to the nuclear program agreement it has never actually withdrawn from, Iranian Ambassador to Italy Mohammad Reza Sabouri said in an interview with TASS.

"We are ready to return to negotiations on the nuclear program. We have never withdrawn from the agreement. It was the US that did so, unilaterally and illegally. This is an international agreement and we still adhere to it," the diplomat said.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi, who is currently in Rome to attend an event on peaceful nuclear energy, expressed his hope to hold talks with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian during a visit to Tehran in the coming weeks. The last time Grossi visited Iran was in May 2024, shortly before the tragic events resulting in the deaths of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian. Additionally, it is worthwhile to examine the approach of the US Republican administration following Donald Trump's win in the US presidential election, the IAEA chief noted, adding that "it has always differed from that of the Joe Biden government."

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany struck a nuclear deal with Iran in 2015 to address the crisis over its nuclear program. Then-US President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement in 2018, while incumbent President Biden has repeatedly signaled his willingness to bring the US back into the nuclear deal. Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany, China, the US, and France have been in talks with Iran in Vienna since April 2021, seeking to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Tehran’s nuclear program in its original form. In November 2022, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said the latest round of talks with Iranian officials ended in the Austrian capital without achieving any specific results.