Washington’s talks with Tehran are set to resume, as Robert Malley, the top U.S. negotiator assigned to the negotiations, travels to Doha, Qatar, to meet indirectly with the Iranian team this week. That’s noteworthy because it follows Tehran’s retreat from a key demand that froze the talks for months.
Citing Iranian state media, Reuters reports:
Qatar will host indirect talks between Iran and the United States in coming days, Iranian media reported on Monday, amid a push by the European Union to break a months-long impasse in negotiations to reinstate a 2015 nuclear pact.
“Iran has chosen Qatar to host the talks because of Doha’s friendly ties with Tehran,” Mohammad Marandi, a media adviser to Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, told the ISNA news agency.
A source briefed on the visit said that U.S. Special Envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, was expected to arrive in Doha on Monday and meet with the Qatari foreign minister. An Iranian official told Reuters that Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani, would be in Doha for the talks on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The decision to pick up the talks, the most recent round of which took place in Vienna in March, followed reports that Iran will no longer demand that the U.S. drop its designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organization.
Although U.S. and European officials told Politico this morning that their expectations remain low, the very fact that Iran dropped its terror-designation demand should augur well for the prospects of reaching a final agreement.
Other sticking points remain, as Politico reported, but Tehran seems intent on clinching this deal. Washington, meanwhile, has refused to walk away, even as Secretary of State Antony Blinken continued to point to an ongoing Iranian terrorism threat targeting top U.S. officials and as Iran removed internationally mandated cameras from its nuclear-enrichment sites.
Earlier this month, Blinken said the administration “remains committed” to a return to the deal as long as Iran drops its “extraneous” demands.