Nuclear Deal Restoration Dialogue 'gets More Difficult', Senior Iranian Official Accuses West Of Faking It

JAKARTA - A senior Iranian security official said on Monday progress in talks to save the 2015 Iran nuclear deal had become "more difficult", as Western powers were only "pretending" to make the initiative.

Dialogue on the restoration of the 2015 nuclear deal in the indirect format of talks in Austria between Iran and the United States resumed last week, after a 10-day break.

Delegates said the talks had made limited progress since they resumed in November, after a five-month lull boosted by Iran's presidential election which was won by Iranian hardliner Ebrahim Raisi.

"Iranian negotiators' work towards progress is becoming more difficult all the time, while the West is 'pretending' to come up with initiatives to circumvent their commitments," Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said on Twitter.

Meanwhile, Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia's envoy for the talks in Vienna, said on Twitter hours earlier: "Significant progress has been made in the negotiation process."

On Thursday last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said there was still a long way to go before the 2015 deal could be revived. Iran's nuclear progress was halted in exchange for an easing of US and other economic sanctions.

The agreement imposes restrictions on Iran's nuclear activities that extend the time it takes Tehran to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb, if it wants to, to at least a year from about two to three months.

Most experts say the time is now shorter than when the deal was made. Meanwhile, Iran itself continues to deny seeking nuclear weapons.

To note, then-President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the nuclear deal in 2018, reimposing US punitive sanctions on Iran's economy that cut its vital oil exports.

Iran responded by violating many of the deal's restrictions and pushing far beyond them, enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels and using advanced centrifuges to do so, which has helped it hone its skills in operating the machines.