PARIS, Aug 17 (Reuters/-AFP): The European Union and United States said on Tuesday they were studying Iran's response to what the EU has called its "final" proposal to save a 2015 nuclear deal after Tehran called on Washington to show flexibility.
A US State Department spokesperson said the United States was sharing its views on Iran's response with the European Union after receiving Tehran's comments from the bloc.
"For the moment, we are studying it and we are consulting with the other JCPOA participants and the US on the way forward," an EU spokesperson told reporters in Brussels, referring to the nuclear deal by the official abbreviation JCPOA.
She declined to give a time frame for any reaction from the EU.
The possibility of a deal which might lead to the lifting of US sanctions on Iran's oil output of 2.5 million barrels per day has already helped trigger a fall in prices on world markets, with US oil futures dropping nearly three percent to finish below $90 a barrel.
A spokesperson for Borrell-who coordinated talks to bring Iran and the United States back into the deal-said the Iranian response was received late Monday and the EU was consulting with the United States and the other parties "on the way ahead".
"Everybody is studying the response and this is not the time for the moment to speculate on timing," Borrell's spokesperson Nabila Massrali later told a press briefing.
Iran's official IRNA news agency reported earlier Tuesday that "an agreement will be concluded if the United States reacts with realism and flexibility" to Iran's response.
Iran's ISNA news agency cited an "informed source" as saying that Tehran "expects to receive the response of the other side in the next two days". IRNA had said Friday that Iran might accept the "final" text drawn up by the European Union to save the deal, which aimed to curb Iran's nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief.
The deal has been moribund since the 2018 withdrawal of the United States under then president Donald Trump whose administration reimposed crippling sanctions.
An unidentified Iranian diplomat said, according to IRNA, that "the European Union's proposals are acceptable provided that they provide assurances to Iran on various points, related to sanctions and safeguards" as well as pending issues with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
IRNA said that the remaining differences centred on three issues. "The United States has expressed flexibility on two of them verbally but that needs to be incorporated into the text," the news agency said without elaborating.
"The third issue has to do with a guarantee that the deal will be lasting, and that depends on realism from the United States to reassure Iran."
None of the parties have spelt out in details the points of contention that are still blocking a deal.
Iran's demand for an end to US blacklisting of its ideological army, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as a "terrorist organisation" has been dropped from the discussions and will instead be handled after the deal, a senior EU official said earlier this month.
