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The outgoing President Hassan Rohani (l.) Meets the elected Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi: What happens next with the international nuclear agreement?
Photo: - / dpa
One day after the presidential election in Iran, diplomats meet in Vienna on Sunday for talks on the revival of the international nuclear agreement with Tehran.
At the meeting, the further course of action should be determined, wrote the Russian diplomat Mikhail Ulyanov, who was involved in the negotiations, on Twitter on Saturday.
An agreement was "within reach, but not yet sealed."
The EU, Germany, France, Great Britain, China and Russia will negotiate directly with Iran over the 2015 nuclear deal. A US delegation is also present in Vienna, but only takes part "indirectly" in the talks and does not sit at the same table with the Iranian representatives. The negotiations aim to bring the nuclear deal back into full force. The agreement aims to prevent Tehran from gaining the ability to build an atomic bomb.
Israel warned against expanding Iran's nuclear program on Saturday after the ultra-conservative candidate Ebrahim Raisi won the presidential election in Iran.
With Raisi, Iran has elected "its most extremist president to date," wrote Israeli Foreign Office spokesman Lior Haiat on Twitter.
Raisi also advocates Iran's "military nuclear program".
The United States withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018 under the then President Donald Trump and had implemented massive new sanctions against Iran.
In response, Tehran gradually withdrew from its obligations under the agreement.
Trump's successor Joe Biden has declared himself ready in principle to start new direct negotiations with Iran, but insists that the country must first abide by its obligations under the nuclear agreement.
Iran, in turn, makes the lifting of US punitive measures a precondition.
mak / AFP