WASHINGTON, May 26. /TASS/. The United States has held positive talks with Iran and reached progress on the issue of Tehran’s nuclear program, US President Donald Trump told journalists onboard his plane traveling from New Jersey to Washington, DC.

According to the White House press pool, "he had ‘very good’ talks about Iran today and yesterday." The American leader added that the US has achieved "real and serious progress" on the issue of the nuclear deal with Tehran, US news channels reported.

"We had some very good talks with Iran and let’s see what happens, but I think we could have some good news on the Iran front," Trump told reporters.

"I have a feeling I might be telling you something good. We’ve had some real progress, serious progress," he added. "I really would like to see that happen. And I think there’s a good chance that it could happen," the US leader noted, speaking of concluding the nuclear deal.

On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that Iran and the United States had not yet agreed on a date and venue for the next round of talks on settling the situation around Tehran’s nuclear program.

The fifth round of Iran-US nuclear talks was held in Rome on May 23. Omani Foreign Minister Badr Al Busaidi, who is mediating the negotiating process, said that the talks yielded "some but not conclusive progress." Following the Rome consultations, Araghchi said that Tehran and Washington are preparing for another round of talks and hope to reach positive results in a couple of meetings.

The negotiation process that has been underway since April 12 was nearly derailed due to disputes about uranium enrichment matters. The US side insists that Iran drop its enrichment plans at its nuclear facilities. Tehran, in turn, argues that its nuclear program is purely peaceful.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry earlier said that in the event the sanctions against Iran are lifted, Tehran is ready to discuss with the US the restriction of volumes and levels of enriching uranium but will never completely shut down its nuclear program as the right to peaceful nuclear development is guaranteed to all the countries that signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), where Tehran was one of the first signatories.

Earlier, Iran vowed to withdraw from the NPT if the snapback mechanism, allowing for the return of all UN Security Council sanctions against Tehran that were suspended under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), is activated.

 

Iranian nuclear issue

 

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. Trump withdrew from the agreement in 2018.

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 JCPOA in its original form, without achieving any specific results.

In response to Washington’s withdrawal from the JCPOA, in 2020, the Iranian parliament passed a law outlining a strategic plan to remove sanctions and protect the Iranian people’s interests. As part of this plan, Iran scaled back several obligations under the nuclear deal, particularly by suspending inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) beyond the safeguard agreement related to the NPT and prohibiting the use of stringent monitoring measures.