“I remain convinced we can reach a deal. Bits of progress have been made in the last few days,” Frnace’s Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told BFM TV and RMC Radio on Friday

“We have been heading in a positive direction in the last few days, but time is of the essence, because if we don’t get an accord quickly there will be nothing to negotiate.”

The eighth round of talks, the first under Iran’s new President Ebrahim Raisi, resumed on Monday after adding some new Iranian demands to a working text.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera on Thursday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian also suggested the situation was positive, but repeated Tehran’s position that all sanctions must be removed and that Washington should provide guarantees that it will not pull out again.

Former US President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of JCPOA in 2018, re-imposing sanctions against Iran.

He said that a good agreement could be reached if the West show seriousness over Iran’s nuclear deal, JCPOA.

MA/PR