The Wall Street Journal quoted well-informed sources as saying that the progress in the Vienna negotiations came after Washington presented the features of a plan to ease sanctions on Iran.
The sources added that Washington has shown willingness to lift sanctions on Iranian industrial sectors, but does not intend to remove the Iranian Revolutionary Guard from the list of terrorist organizations.
The newspaper pointed out that Washington's sanctions against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and the Office of the Supreme Leader followed the negotiations, and indicated that Iranian and American internal political complications make the Vienna negotiations a more difficult stage.
In this report, we review the latest developments in the nuclear deal file, and the accompanying regional and international reactions.
Israel and Washington
The Axios website reported, citing Israeli officials, that a high-level US-Israeli meeting was held the day after the attack on the Iranian nuclear facility, Natanz.
According to the source, Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben Shabat expressed at the meeting his concern that the US administration, while dealing with the Iranian nuclear file, had not shown sufficient attention to Israeli concerns regarding this file.
The American side expressed in the meeting its concern that the Israeli government did not fully inform Washington of its operations and intelligence activities against Iran.
The two Israeli officials added that the Israeli side expressed its concern that the US administration was not transparent about the proposals it presented in the Vienna meetings regarding the Iranian nuclear file.
According to the site, a high-level Israeli security delegation will discuss the Iranian issue in Washington next week.
Talks and progress
Politico confirmed that the talks on the Iran nuclear deal in Vienna are making progress and will resume next week.
The website, quoting a diplomat familiar with the negotiations, who declined to be identified, reported that the speed of the negotiations increased and reached almost halfway, with a final agreement likely to be reached after an additional round or two.
At the same time, the site stressed that the talks are still fragile, especially after the Natanz attack and the presence of pressure in the United States on US President Joe Biden to maintain some economic restrictions on Iran, which Tehran rejects.
The site pointed out that Washington and Tehran have not yet reached an agreement on how to arrange their respective steps and whether the lifting of sanctions and Iran's retreat from its nuclear steps will take place simultaneously or not.
Neither increase nor decrease
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani affirmed today, Wednesday, that his country adheres to the text of the nuclear agreement document, stressing that it will not accept any increase or decrease in it.
Rouhani said - in statements reported by the official IRNA agency - that Iran does not want anything additional, but it has demands that it will present later. “The country has incurred hundreds of billions of dollars in damages in the past four years, but what is required now is to fully implement the agreement.”
Rouhani added that the first step to implementing the agreement is for Washington to lift all sanctions, explaining that his country had seen seriousness on the American side in some files, but he had contradictions in other files.
Turning to the recent Vienna talks to revive the nuclear deal, Rouhani said, "Everyone knows that the way to solve the problem of Iran's nuclear program lies in the full implementation of the agreement."
No unilateral concessions
State Department spokesman Ned Price said that the White House envoy to Iran is discussing a plan that includes specific steps to return to the nuclear deal.
Price stressed that the United States will not make unilateral initiatives or concessions to Iran, and said that Washington's purpose is to subject Tehran's nuclear program to the most stringent verification regimes.
He added that the United States will not lift sanctions on Iran unless it is assured that it will fully comply with its obligations under the agreement and limit its nuclear program, in a way that reduces the level and scope of enrichment, "otherwise the United States will not make any concessions," as he put it.
"There has been progress in the past two weeks, but there is a lot of work to be done," the European Union's political director, Enrique Mora, who is coordinating the indirect talks between Tehran and Washington, wrote on his Twitter account.
Iran and Korea
The head of the Iran-South Korea Joint Chamber of Commerce said that Seoul released $ 30 million of Iranian funds frozen at its banks.
He added that Tehran benefited from this amount to buy vaccines for the Corona virus, and said that South Korea was scheduled to pay one billion dollars from the money with which Iran is withholding, but that has not been achieved so far.
Tehran had called on Korean officials several times to release about $ 7 billion of its funds frozen in South Korea by the US sanctions.