US Reiterates Direct Talks With Iran Would Facilitate Diplomacy

The United States has reiterated that direct communication with Iran would in some ways facilitate diplomacy regarding the talks to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement.

State Department spokesman Ned Price on Thursday dodged questions about the content of the meetings by European Union’s coordinator of the nuclear talks in the first day of his visit to Tehran, implying that the administration does not have any readout of the visit.

“I am confident that our team will be in touch with Enrique Mora and his team. Of course, he is still on the ground”, he said.

Answering a question about the last communication exchanged between Tehran and Washington, he said that if Iran and the US were able to have direct discussions "we weren’t reliant on a middleman... But regardless, we’re not going to detail a play-by-play".

Saying that the department does not have any updates on the talks to offer, Price emphasized that the administration is of the opinion that a mutual return to compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or the JCPOA, “would manifestly be in our national security interest because it would once again put permanent and verifiable limits on Iran’s nuclear program, a program that has been in many ways unconstrained since 2018”.

Talks to revive Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers have stalled since March, chiefly over Tehran's insistence that Washington remove the FTO designation of the IRGC, which is the only example of a sovereign state’s armed forces to be included.