Iran demands sanctions relief as N-talks resume

Iran demands sanctions relief as N-talks resume

Indirect talks between Iran and the United States on salvaging the 2015 Iran nuclear deal resumed Monday with Tehran focused on one side of the original bargain, lifting sanctions against it, despite scant progress on reining in its atomic activities.

The seventh round of talks, the first under Iran's new President Ebrahim Raisi, ended 10 days ago after adding some new Iranian demands to a working text. Western powers said progress was too slow and negotiators had "weeks not months" left before the 2015 deal becomes meaningless.

Little remains of that deal, which lifted sanctions against Tehran in exchange for restrictions on its atomic activities. Then-President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of it in 2018, re-imposing US sanctions, and Iran later breached many of the deal's nuclear restrictions and kept pushing well beyond them.

"Today all parties have agreed to come back to activate the eighth round of negotiations even in (the) Christmas and New Year's holiday. This in itself fully shows a greater sense of urgency on the part of all parties concerned," China's top envoy Wang Qun told reporters.

He was speaking shortly before a meeting of the remaining parties to the deal - Iran, Russia, China, France, Britain, Germany and