Ulyanov's Tweets Reflect Greater Optimism In Iran Nuclear Talks

Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s lead negotiator in the Vienna talks on Iran’s nuclear program, tweeted twice Friday to signal progress.

At 1.13pm, he posted a photo across a table from Robert Malley hailing “another very useful meeting” with the United States Special Envoy on Iran and noting “we are definitely moving ahead.”

At 4.13pm Ulyanov sent out a second tweet, with a photo across the table from Enrique Mora, the senior European Union official chairing talks among world powers seeking to revive the JCPOA, the 2015 agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear program from which President Donald Trump withdrew the US in 2018.

Ulyanov wrote he had had “in-depth discussion” with Mora on what “a final document …may look like.” Ulyanov had previously expressed optimism that this could be done by the end of February.

A final document would contain details of which sanctions the United States would lift as incompatible with the JCPOA and exactly how the Iranian nuclear program, expanded and developed since 2019, would be returned to JCPOA limits. It would also be expected to contain a timetable for ‘sequencing’ such moves.

Western European negotiators in recent days have also said they are more hopeful. The lead United Kingdom negotiator and director for Middle East and North African affairs Stephanie Al-Qaq tweeted Thurday that her meeting with Iran’s lead negotiator Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani and Mora has seen a “constructive exchange.”