Nuclear deal pending Iran's new government

Reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear accord will have to await the formation of a new Iranian government, the head of the international nuclear watchdog said, adding a deal needed political will from all parties.

Iran's new president is expected to name his cabinet by mid-August. The term of current President Hassan Rouhani ends on Aug. 3, a government spokesman said.

Today, a senior diplomat from Tehran said Iran is closer than it has previously been to reaching a nuclear deal with the United States. With Iranian presidential elections set to take place this weekend, the Iranian official said it would have no impact on the ongoing negotiations in Vienna.

There has been “tangible progress” made during the first few rounds of negotiations with the US over a nuclear deal, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was quoted as telling Qatar’s Al Jazeera.

France's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Agnes von der Muhll told reporters that the negotiations were now on the most difficult topics and that significant disagreements persisted.

A top European diplomat Enrique Mora, who is coordinating the talks in Vienna, said progress had been made on overcoming key obstacles at the talks but indicated that more time may be needed.

A landmark agreement in 2015 imposed strict curbs on Iran's nuclear activities in exchange for easing U.S. sanctions in a bid to curb Iran’s funding of terror networks and proxies around the world but the deal was largely abandoned by the former Trump administration three years later.

The 2015 agreement was designed to keep Iran's nuclear program peaceful, imposing strict controls on uranium enrichment levels as well as the technology and facilities used for the process.

Iran stopped abiding by those limits after the U.S. withdrawal but insists it has no plan to build nuclear weapons, a claim that the U.S. and its Western allies dispute.

Tehran has long insisted that its program is for peaceful purposes. However, U.S. intelligence agencies and International Atomic Energy Agency say Iran pursued an organized nuclear weapons program up until 2003.