No direct negotiations between Iran, US

There are no direct negotiations between Iran and the US amid speculation that a recent exchange or messages were a sign of direct communication between Tehran and Washington.

"There are no direct negotiations between Iran and the United States, and the exchange of messages is only within the defined framework," the source told IRNA on condition of anonymity.

The source emphasised that Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Ali Bagheri Kani is in charge of negotiations with signatories of the 2015 nuclear agreement, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), to remove sanctions against Iran.

The US, under ex-President Donald Trump, unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018 and restored the sanctions that the deal had lifted, prompting Iran to begin scaling back its commitments under the agreement.

Talks to salvage the nuclear deal began in Vienna in April 2021 with the intention of examining how serious the Joe Biden administration was in claiming that it wanted to rejoin the deal.

The negotiations, however, stalled as the US refused to lift the sanctions, a key demand of Iran in the talks.