The leaders of the United States, Britain, France and Germany on Sunday discussed the efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the White House said on Sunday in a statement largely focused on Ukraine.
“In addition, they discussed ongoing negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, the need to strengthen support for partners in the Middle East region, and joint efforts to deter and constrain Iran’s destabilizing regional activities,” the White House said in the statement, quoted by Reuters.
The White House provided no further details regarding the Middle Eastern portion of the discussion among US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Iran scaled back its compliance with the 2015 deal, in response to former US President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement in May of 2018, but has held several rounds of indirect talks with the US on a return to the agreement.
The most recent round of talks concluded in early August, as the parties closed a final text and key negotiators prepared to consult with their capitals.
Those talks took place following a proposal submitted on July 26 by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who said the proposal was a “final draft”.
Iran last Monday submitted its response to the European Union's proposed text to revive the 2015 nuclear deal.
The European Union and United States later said they were studying Iran’s response to the EU proposal.
On Friday, a senior US administration official told CNN that Iran has officially dropped a key "red line" demand that had been a major sticking point in efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
The official said that, in its response to the EU proposal, Iran did not demand that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps be removed from the State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
"The current version of the text, and what they are demanding, drops it," the official told CNN, noting that the US had repeatedly and consistently rejected the demand. "So if we are closer to a deal, that's why."
The Iranians also dropped demands related to delisting several companies tied to the IRGC, the official said.