On the evening of Wednesday 24 August the European Union received the US response to the proposed Iran nuclear deal.
“I can confirm that we have received the US response and that we have passed it on to Iran and the participants in the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA)”, i.e France, Germany, the UK, China and Russia, stressed European External Action Service spokeswoman Nabila Massrali.
Asked by EUROPE what the next steps would be, the spokeswoman said that confidentiality was important and that she preferred to “stick to what was said”, at this stage.
The State Department’s principal deputy spokesman, Vedant Patel, also declined to elaborate on the content of the US response.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani announced that his country had received the US response via the EU, that it had begun to evaluate the US side’s views in detail and that it would inform the coordinator of its position once this examination was completed.
Tehran had responded on 15 August to the compromise proposal submitted by the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, on 26 July, which, according to Borrell, is “the tipping point”. “I think there is no room for improvement on either side”, he said on 22 August. Mr Borrell described the Iranian response as “reasonable”. According to him, Tehran accepted the proposal while asking for “some adjustments”. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)