This story has been updated with comments from Pentagon spokesman John Kirby and State Department spokesman Ned Price. “We’ve said this many times before, but we believe it remains possible to quickly reach and implement an understanding on a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA by closing the relatively small number of issues that remained outstanding at the end of June, when the sixth round concluded,” Price said on Wednesday. US State Department spokesman Ned Price has expressed optimism for the upcoming talks, but warned that time is waning. The talks have been on a months-long hiatus, a result of Iran electing a new President and then assembling a new negotiating team to participate in discussions to revive the 2015 nuclear deal.
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The recent back-and-forth between the US and Iran comes as long-delayed nuclear talks are poised to restart November 29 in Vienna, Austria.
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The US is trying to better understand where the vessel and its cargo came from, one US official added, and whether oil was transferred at some point along its route.
#ADAM JOHN KIRBY FREE#
“I would add that Iran’s actions, the ones that are true, of them illegally boarding and seizing a vessel, constitute a blatant violation of international law that undermines freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce,” Kirby said. He said the only seizing that had been done was “by Iran.” “At no time were US forces attempting to retake or otherwise engage in the situation,” Kirby said. Two US officials said the Iranian forces then sailed the ship into Iran’s territorial waters. In response, the US 5th Fleet, which operates naval ships in the Middle East, directed “two ships and aerial assets to closely monitor the situation,” Kirby said. What this refers to is back on the 24th of October, US Navy assets did monitor Iranian forces illegally boarding and seizing a merchant vessel in international waters in the Gulf of Oman,” Kirby said. “There was no such effort by US naval assets to seize anything. Kirby swiftly rejected those claims on Wednesday. Iran had said that US forces boarded a tanker, unloaded crude oil onto another tanker, before IRGC Navy carried out a “heliborne operation on the stolen ships deck” and directed it back to Iranian territorial waters. According to Iranian state-media quoting the IRGC, US warships and helicopters “chased the tanker” in an attempt to take it over but failed.
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Iran’s Revolutionary Guard claimed it had stopped US forces from confiscating Iranian crude oil on the tanker.