IRAN, December 21, (Asia Free Press): The Iranian foreign ministry denied a claim by US National Security Advisor (NSA) Jake Sullivan that there were direct talks between the two countries over the past few months, official news agency IRNA reported.
“Since the beginning of the negotiations on the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal in Vienna, Iran has held no direct talks with the United States,” said Saeed Khatibzadeh, the ministry’s spokesman, in an address to a weekly press conference.
Last week, Sullivan told reporters in Washington that the United States has “communicated both through the Europeans and directly to Iran.”
Saeed Khatibzadeh added that “Iran has received some messages on the issues of negotiations in written and unwritten forms through EU mediators since the start of the talks in Vienna, to which answers were given on the spot”.
In May 2018, former US President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the Iranian nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and reimposed unilateral sanctions against Tehran in a bid to hammer out a new deal.
Since early April this year, representatives from China, France, Germany, Russia, Britain and Iran have held seven rounds of negotiations in the Austrian capital, with the United States involved indirectly, aiming to bring the United States back to the JCPOA and prepare the ground for its full implementation.
The seventh and latest round of the talks started on November 29 and were concluded the previous Friday.
