Austria

13 June 2021; MEMO: Indirect talks between Tehran and Washington on reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal resumed in Vienna on Saturday as the European Union said negotiations were "intense" and Germany called for rapid progress, reports Reuters.

The sixth round of talks began as usual with a meeting of remaining parties to the deal – Iran, Russia, China, France, Britain, Germany, and the European Union – in the basement of a luxury hotel.

VIENNA, June 12 (Xinhua) -- The United States should stop shilly-shallying by moving decisively to complete and thorough sanction-lifting, a Chinese envoy said Saturday as a new round of talks to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), started.

VIENNA (AP) — European Union negotiators said international talks that resumed Saturday on the Iran nuclear agreement were on track to revive the deal, which crumbled after the United States withdrew in 2018.

Senior diplomats from China, Germany, France, Russia, and Britain concluded a 90-minute meeting with Iranian representatives at a hotel in the Austrian capital.

“We are making progress, but the negotiations are intense and a number of issues (remain), including on how steps are to be implemented,” EU representative Alain Matton told reporters in Vienna.

(Reuters) --- The head of Austrian state holdings group OBAG, Thomas Schmid, stepped down on Tuesday as prosecutors investigate whether Chancellor Sebastian Kurz perjured himself in saying he was not involved in appointing Schmid and OBAG's supervisory board.

(Reuters) --- The U.N. atomic watchdog has seen indications in North Korea of possible reprocessing work to separate plutonium from spent reactor fuel that could be used in nuclear weapons, the head of the agency said on Monday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has not had access to the secretive state since Pyongyang expelled its inspectors in 2009. The country then pressed ahead with its nuclear weapons programme and soon resumed nuclear testing. Its last detonation of a nuclear weapon was in 2017.

VIENNA (AP) — Iran has failed to answer questions about the discovery of uranium particles at former undeclared sites in the country, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Monday, calling on Tehran to provide information “without further delay.”

Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has been pushing Iran for answers on three sites dating back many years where inspections had revealed traces of uranium of man-made origin, suggesting they were once connected to Iran’s nuclear program.

(Reuters) --- It would be "unimaginable" for Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz to stay in office if convicted of perjury, the country's vice chancellor and leader of the Greens, Werner Kogler, said in remarks broadcast on Saturday.

Kogler's comments suggest the coalition between his party and Kurz's conservatives could collapse if Kurz, whom prosecutors have placed under investigation over his testimony to a parliamentary commission, were charged and then convicted.

(Reuters) --- Britain, France, Germany and the United States will not push for a resolution against Iran at next week's meeting of the U.N. nuclear watchdog's board despite Tehran's failure to explain uranium traces found at three sites, diplomats said on Friday.

A resolution could have prompted an escalation between Tehran and the West that would have jeopardised talks on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal taking place in Vienna, where the atomic watchdog is also based. 

(Reuters) --- The remaining parties to the Iran nuclear deal will meet in Vienna on Wednesday, the European Union announced, as diplomats said the meeting will wrap up the latest round of talks on reviving the deal and adjourn discussions for at least a week.

VIENNA (AP) — The United Nations’ atomic watchdog hasn’t been able to access data important to monitoring Iran’s nuclear program since late February when the Islamic Republic started restricting international inspections of its facilities, the agency said Monday.