News - Middle East: Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian says his Qatari counterpart conveyed messages from the parties to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, whose fate has been in limbo ever since the United States unilaterally withdrew from the agreement in 2018.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani on Sunday, Amir-Abdollahian also lauded efforts by Doha during multilateral negotiations to revive the nuclear deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

“Today, we received messages from the JCPOA parties via the Qatari foreign minister,” he said, without providing more details.

He said Iran welcomes Qatar’s efforts to convey messages or initiatives to help the JCPOA parties resolve the remaining issues and have the US sanctions lifted.

Back in May 2018, former US president Donald Trump unilaterally pulled Washington out of the JCPOA, which was reached between Tehran and six world powers three years earlier.

 Trump also imposed harsh economic sanctions against the country under the so-called “maximum pressure” policy.

The talks to salvage the agreement kicked off in the Austrian capital of Vienna in April 2021, months after Joe Biden succeeded Trump, with the intention of examining Washington’s seriousness in rejoining the deal and removing anti-Iran sanctions.