Iran To Send Delegation To Vienna For Talks With IAEA

As chances of reviving the 2015 nuclear deal remain dim, Iran's foreign minister says Tehran will send a delegation to Vienna in the coming days for meetings with IAEA officials. 

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Wednesday that the aim of the visit is to try to narrow differences with the UN nuclear watchdog. "We will send a delegation from Iran to Vienna in the coming days to start talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and we hope to resolve remaining issues based on what we have agreed in the past days," he said. 

He added that he would speak to the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, to discuss efforts to revive the JCPOA, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. 

In an interview published on Wednesday, Bijan Djir-Sarai, the general secretary of Germany’s liberal Free Democrats (FDP) -- a junior partner in the ruling coalition – said the deal with world powers "has no future and is not in line with reality." He noted that continuing talks would mean "negotiating with an inhuman regime that has completely rejected by its own people and has no legitimacy whatsoever".

On October 18, United States’ officials reiterated their support for the ongoing protests in Iran with Special Envoy Robert Malley saying that the talks to revive the nuclear deal are no longer on the agenda. Malley said on October 31, the Biden administration is not going to "waste time" on trying to revive the nuclear deal at this time considering Tehran's crackdown on protesters, Iranian support for Russia's war in Ukraine, and Iran's positions on its nuclear program.