(Bloomberg) -- Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said plans are underway to discuss a nuclear deal that has been stalled for years following a “positive” meeting with French leader Emmanuel Macron and ahead of talks with China’s foreign minister.
Pezeshkian didn’t provide details on the timing and location of the potential discussions, nor who would participate. The deal was among the topics raised with Macron, along with the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and other regional issues, the Iranian president told Bloomberg on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday.
The remarks may reflect a faint hope by Pezeshkian, who took office in July, that he can help revive Iran’s sanctions-hit economy. A relative moderate by Iran’s political standards, Pezeshkian has to navigate a mandate he received in the election with the reality that Iran’s clerical regime and military wield outsized influence on the country’s policies.
Any discussion about reviving the nuclear deal is likely to be piecemeal. While keeping a lid on Tehran’s nuclear ambitions is a priority for a number of countries, the parties to the 2015 agreement with Iran — Russia, China, the US, UK, France and Germany — aren’t likely to agree to joint negotiations or even gather in a room together.
Macron’s office said France is willing to solve differences with Iran under clear parameters.
Read: Can Iran’s Reformist President Make a Difference?: QuickTake
Tehran has long denied seeking nuclear weapons but says it is interested in a civilian nuclear power program. That first statement has been disputed by groups including the International Atomic Energy Agency, Israel, the US and others who have reported evidence that Iran has previously sought to build a nuclear weapon.
The 2015 accord negotiated during President Barack Obama’s tenure quickly crumbled after his successor, Donald Trump, withdrew from the agreement in 2018. Until then, however, it was broadly seen as having provided transparency into and effective restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program.
Six years later, the politics for restarting the deal are far more complicated. Two of Iran’s key allies, Hamas and Hezbollah, are currently enmeshed in a conflict with Israel, while Tehran has angered the US and much of Europe over its support for Russian forces in Ukraine, a charge Iran’s government denies.
Pezeshkian, in a speech to the General Assembly on Tuesday, said Iran won’t ease its support of its allied forces in the face of Israeli attacks. He called Israel’s air strikes on Gaza “desperate barbarism.”
The US has also accused Iran of being behind efforts to target American political figures, including Trump and officials from his administration. The US earlier this month also accused Iranian hackers of emailing stolen information from Trump’s presidential campaign to President Joe Biden’s campaign team and journalists.
(Adds comment from Pezeshkian’s speech to the UN General Assembly.)
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