TEHRAN, 07 March 2022, (TON): Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Saturday after talks in Tehran that they agreed on an approach to resolve issues crucial in efforts to revive the country’s 2015 nuclear deal.

They said in a joint statement “both aimed to resolve a standoff over the origin of uranium particles found at old but undeclared sites by early June.”

The announcement came shortly before Russia said it would seek guarantees from the US before it backs the deal, potentially scuppering hopes an agreement could be wrapped up quickly.

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said the UN agency and Iran “did have a number of important matters that we needed to resolve,” but that they had now “decided to try a practical, pragmatic approach” to overcome them.

Grossi said “it would be difficult to believe or to imagine that such an important return to such a comprehensive agreement like the (nuclear deal) would be possible if the agency and Iran would not be seeing eye to eye on how to resolve these important safeguards issues.”

Mohammed Eslami, president of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said “the two sides had come to the conclusion that some documents which need to be ex- changed between the IAEA and the Iranian organization should be exchanged” by May 22.