Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency agreed on Saturday on a roadmap to resolve outstanding issues, at a time when an informed Iranian source said that there was no basis for what Reuters quoted an official about Moscow's request for guarantees related to the nuclear deal.
The announcement comes as all parties involved in the indirect talks aimed at bringing Tehran and Washington back into compliance with the nuclear deal said they are close to reaching an agreement in Vienna.
"We agreed to submit to the IAEA, by June 21, documents related to the remaining issues between Tehran and the agency," said Mohammad Eslami, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization.
In a press conference in Tehran with the Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, Eslami stressed that the settlement of the outstanding issues between the two parties must take place before reactivating the nuclear agreement.
For his part, Grossi said, "It is important that we have this understanding ... to work together, to work very intensively."
The international official added that it would be difficult to reach an agreement in Vienna, if the outstanding issues between Tehran and the agency were not resolved.
He went on to say that what they are doing, and the questions being asked, are the result of his agency's reports and do not impose any external agenda on them, as he put it.
Grossi arrived in Tehran late yesterday to discuss one of the last thorny issues blocking the revival of the nuclear deal, which requires lifting sanctions on Iran and restricting its enrichment of uranium to make it difficult to produce materials for nuclear weapons.
The visit to Iran has raised hopes of progress on one of the last thorny issues blocking approval to revive the nuclear deal that former US President Donald Trump withdrew from in 2018 and reimposed Washington's sanctions on Tehran.
In response to Trump's withdrawal, since 2019 Iran began violating the terms of the nuclear deal, rebuilding and enriching stocks of enriched uranium to fissile purity, and installing advanced centrifuges to speed up production.
And the International Atomic Energy Agency found particles of processed uranium in 3 ancient sites that Iran had never announced, and it has repeatedly said that Tehran did not provide definitive answers.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (Reuters)
Russian demands
In a related context, an informed Iranian source said, "Any official or member of our delegation in Vienna did not speak to Reuters, commenting on Russia's request for guarantees related to the nuclear deal."
Reuters had quoted - who it described as a senior Iranian official - as saying that Russia's demand two days ago for written guarantees from the United States that sanctions will not harm its cooperation with Tehran is counterproductive to the Vienna talks.
The Iranian official added that there is an understanding that Russia - by changing its position in the Vienna talks - wants to secure its interests elsewhere.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Western sanctions imposed on his country due to the conflict in Ukraine had become a stumbling block in the Iran nuclear deal, and demanded written guarantees from the United States that sanctions against Russia would not harm its cooperation with Iran.
Lavrov told reporters that his country wanted written guarantees that the current process initiated by the United States "will in no way harm our right to full and free trade, economic and investment cooperation and military-technical cooperation with Iran."
Iran and the powers affiliated to the 2015 agreement (France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany) are holding talks to revive the understanding from which Washington withdrew unilaterally in 2018.
The talks - in which Washington indirectly participates - reached an advanced stage, but without resolving all the differences, and Western countries have called for them to be completed this week, especially in light of what they believe is the acceleration of Iran's nuclear activities.