Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that the sanctions imposed on his country will be lifted in a short time if the Iranians remain united, according to him, while parties to the Vienna negotiations confirmed that the prisoner exchange between Washington and Tehran is not on the table.
Rouhani added, in a speech to a meeting of the Iranian government, that reaching understandings on returning to the nuclear deal in the Vienna talks would be possible and swift if the opposite party abides by the law.
He stressed that matters in Vienna are on the right track, explaining that the signatories to the nuclear agreement have realized that they have no choice but to implement Security Council Resolution 2231.
The parties to the nuclear agreement concluded a meeting in the Austrian capital on Saturday at the level of assistant foreign ministers by agreeing to hold a new meeting on May 7, amid Russian and Iranian optimism that the talks would proceed in the right direction.
Prisoners
For his part, the Russian representative in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, said that the issue of American and Iranian prisoners was not part of the Vienna talks.
Ulyanov had revealed earlier that the Vienna negotiations on returning to the nuclear agreement were progressing, expressing disapproval of the comments that talk about their collapse.
The White House denied the reports about the prisoner exchange deal with Iran.
White House spokeswoman Jane Sackey said Washington had not changed its policy of paying ransoms to free its captives.
She added that the indirect talks to release the American hostages in Iran are taking place on a separate track from the nuclear talks in Vienna.
talks
The European Union said that Foreign Policy Commissioner Josep Borrell held talks in London with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on the Vienna negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program, in light of the possibility of the United States returning to the agreement and ensuring its full and effective implementation.
Borrell said that negotiations to revive the nuclear deal with Iran are difficult but are moving forward.
On Monday, Iran revealed that two drafts had been reached during Vienna's indirect negotiations with the United States on reviving the nuclear deal, while Washington said that there is still a long way to go to return to the nuclear agreement concluded between Tehran and the major powers in 2015.
Tehran said that an understanding could have been reached a month ago if Washington were ready to lift all sanctions in a practical way, explaining that the Vienna understandings were based on accepting the lifting of sanctions.