The US State Department said there are still outstanding issues that need to be resolved in order to reach an agreement on a return to the nuclear deal with Iran.
“The notion that we somehow delayed these negotiations is simply wrong,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters on Monday.
He explained that after the European Union sent the “final” text of the proposed agreement to Tehran and Washington in late July, Iran responded with “a number of comments,” without specifying what exactly.
“That’s why it took us extra time to review these comments and decide on a response. We are seriously looking into these comments,” he added.
Price said Iran’s response was encouraging as Tehran “apparently dropped some of its unacceptable demands, such as removing the name of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps” from the US list of terrorist organizations.
He continued: “There are still some outstanding issues that need to be resolved and some gaps that need to be filled” in order to reach an agreement, adding, “We are working as quickly as possible to prepare an appropriate response to the Iranian document.”
Price noted that “if Iran had given a clear answer, I think we would not have seen all these compromises,” but stressed that “today we are closer to an agreement than two weeks ago. “
Source: AFP.