TEHRAN — Negotiators from Iran and the United States resumed indirect talks in Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday afternoon.

The Iranian negotiating team is led by Ali Bagheri Kani and the U.S. team by Robert Malley, Joe Biden’s special envoy for Iran. 

Malley arrived in Doha on Monday. However, Bagheri Kani arrived on Tuesday.
 
The first day of the talks to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, commonly known as the nuclear deal, began through mediation by the EU team led by Enrique Mora. 

Bagheri Kani met Mora in the afternoon to hear and oversee the U.S. proposals. 

On Tuesday, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Twitter saying that Doha welcomes hosting indirect talks between Iran and the U.S.

On Tuesday morning, Iran’s ambassador to Qatar, Hamid Reza Dehghani, said that Iran’s chief negotiator has arrived in Doha, and wished success for the renewed negotiations. 

Later, he said on his Twitter page that Bagheri Kani has met with the Secretary-General of the Qatari Foreign Ministry and discussed ways to “make the Doha talks a success.”

While all eyes are glued to Doha, it is not unnatural that Qatar faces some diplomatic traffic jam. On Tuesday afternoon, the United Arab Emirates’ National Security Advisor Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed visited Doha and held talks with the Qatari foreign ministry officials. 

Similarly, the new French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna held a phone conversation with the Qatari Foreign Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani. 

During the conversation, both sides reviewed the latest developments in the JCPOA revival talks.

The two chief diplomats also stressed the importance of regional dialogue with Iran and convergence of views between the parties, as the Qatari foreign ministry reported.

In his last briefing as the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman on Monday, Saeed Khatibzadeh said that Tehran is committed to resolving the few remaining issues as soon as possible, and it hopes that the messages that EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell had brought to Tehran on Saturday will be seen in practice.

“What we are going to do in the next few days in the next negotiations is not about the nuclear aspect of the talks, because the nuclear issues have been closed once,” Khatibzadeh remarked.

The talks only center on the disputes that still remain including the lifting of sanctions, he noted. 

“What is going to be negotiated in one of the Persian Gulf countries is only about a few remaining issues in the field of lifting sanctions, so nothing will be added to the agreements reached in Vienna and nothing will be omitted,” he stated.

He went on to reiterate that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.”