(Updated with context, Enrique Mora)
PARIS, Jan 28 (Reuters) – Negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program remain “difficult” but there are signs in favor of a deal, a source at the Elysee Palace said on Friday after an interview. between French President Emmanuel Macron and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
Indirect talks between Iran and the United States on the 2015 agreement resumed two months ago in Vienna, after a long hiatus following the election as Iranian president of the ultra-conservative Ebrahim Raisi, but the negotiators complain of their slowness.
According to a French diplomatic source, the month of February could be “decisive” after “timid” progress.
Since Donald Trump’s 2018 decision to withdraw the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA), the technical name of the text on Iran’s nuclear program signed in Vienna in 2015, Tehran has taken many freedoms in relation to the agreement, in particular with regard to the enrichment of uranium.
European envoy Enrique Mora, who is coordinating the Vienna talks, announced on Twitter on Friday that delegations were returning to their respective countries for a break, before resuming this seventh cycle next week.
Representatives from Germany, China, France, Britain, Iran and Russia are taking part in the talks.
“Participants will return to their respective capitals for consultations and instructions. Political decisions are needed now. Bon voyage to all participants,” Mora tweeted.
Tehran demands the lifting of all American sanctions before any decision concerning nuclear power. Western negotiators believe, on the contrary, that nuclear negotiations and the lifting of sanctions must go hand in hand.
Experts point out that the longer Iran breaks free from the deal, the more skills it will acquire and the time it would need to build an atomic bomb, should it ever make that decision, making it de facto a useless nuclear deal. Tehran claims to have never intended to acquire nuclear weapons. (Report John Irish, French version Tangi Salaün, Sophie Louet and Bertrand Boucey)