The Iran Nuclear Deal Is On The Home Stretch

Iran and the United States have managed to resolve two of four key issues in their negotiations on a new nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign minister said. Two, however, remain.

Once these are resolved, Hossein Amirabdollahian said, as quoted by state news agency IRNA, Tehran will be ready to sign the new deal.

One of the issues yet to be resolved is an economic guarantee, The National reported, quoting the official. The other was not named.

“If the American side fulfils our two remaining demands today, we will be ready to go to Vienna tomorrow,” Amirabdollahian said earlier today.

The nuclear deal talks stalled earlier this month after Russia, one of the signatories for the original deal, demanded guarantees that U.S. and European sanctions against it would not affect its trade relations with Iran.

This week, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told media that Moscow had received these guarantees and the talks could continue. Initially, the U.S. and the Western European signatories to the nuclear deal had refused to provide those guarantees.

Another stumbling block for the deal came after an Iranian missile attack on the U.S. consulate in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan autonomous region in Iraq. The strike came in response to Israeli forces killing two members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps in Syria last week. According to official Kurdish sources, the strike caused only material damage, but the U.S. Congress called for a suspension of the talks.

If a deal is agreed upon, U.S. sanctions on Iran will be lifted, and its oil will start flowing legally into international markets. Such a development could see half a million barrels of Iranian oil added to global supply during the second quarter of the year, according to Wall Street analysts. Output could further be boosted during the rest of the year, helping alleviate a shortage that has pushed oil prices higher.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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