Muscat – As the European Union and the United States finalise their stance to Iran’s final draft agreement on reviving a 2015 nuclear accord with major powers it presented at talks in Vienna earlier in the month, Oman is facilitating crucial back channel negotiations on the deal.

H E Sayyid Badr al Busaidi, Foreign Minister, spoke over phone with Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Robert Malley, the US Special Envoy for Iran, on Thursday.
H E Sayyid Badr received a phone call from Amir-Abdollahian in which they exchanged views on the latest developments in the negotiations to resume the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement and several regional and international issues.

In the call made by H E Sayyid Badr to Malley, they discussed efforts to resume the JCPOA.
The European Union said on Tuesday it was studying Iran’s response to a “final” draft agreement on reviving the 2015 nuclear accord. On Monday, the US said that it was informing EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell of its response to the text he submitted on August 8.

The possibility of a deal which might lead to the lifting of US sanctions on Iran’s oil output of 2.5mn barrels per day has already helped trigger a fall in prices in world markets, with US oil futures dropping nearly three per cent to finish below US$90 a barrel.

A spokesperson for Borrell – who coordinated talks to bring Iran and the US back into the deal – said the Iranian response was received late on Monday. “We are studying it and are consulting with the other JCPOA participants and the US on the way ahead,” the spokesperson said.

On Tuesday, Iranian news agency IRNA reported that ‘an agreement will be concluded if the US reacts with realism and flexibility’ to Iran’s response.