Iran and US to hold indirect talks in Doha

Indirect talks on nuclear deal in Vienna were suspended over Iran's insistence that Washington remove Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from Foreign Terrorist Organisation list

'Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani, will travel to Doha on Tuesday for the nuclear talks,' Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Naser Kanani told state news agency IRNA. Bloomberg

Indirect talks between Iran and the US will begin on Tuesday in Qatar's capital, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Monday.

The US State Department said Iran needed to decide on whether it would drop additional demands that go beyond the deal that set limits on Iran's nuclear programme, which both countries had been renegotiating via indirect talks in Vienna, Austria.

“Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani, will travel to Doha on Tuesday for the nuclear talks,” Iran's new Foreign Ministry spokesman Naser Kanani told state news agency IRNA.

Earlier, a source briefed on the visit told Reuters that US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley was expected to arrive in Doha on Monday and meet the Qatari foreign minister.

The Qatari government has yet to comment.

The pact appeared close to being secured in March when the EU invited foreign ministers representing the accord's parties to Vienna to finalise an agreement after 11 months of indirect talks between Tehran and President Joe Biden's administration.

But the talks have since been suspended, chiefly over Tehran's insistence that Washington remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, its elite security force, from the US Foreign Terrorist Organisation list.

Last week, one Iranian and one European official told Reuters that Iran had dropped its demand for the removal of the IRGC from the list, but two issues, including one on sanctions, remain to be resolved.

“Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Monday.

The 2015 nuclear pact imposed curbs on Iran's nuclear activities in return for the lifting of international sanctions. Then-president Donald Trump pulled the US out of the deal in 2018, reimposing tough economic sanctions on Tehran.

Iran responded by breaching the pact's nuclear restrictions.