Tehran, Jul 13 (IANS): An Iranian government official said that the Vienna talks on the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal, officially known the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was near its "conclusion".

"Given the progress that has been made (in the recent negotiations), we can say that we are close to the conclusion of the Vienna talks," Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said during a press conference on Monday.

He said that there are still some unresolved issues, but what matters is that "the weight of resolved issues outweighs that of the unresolved issues", reports Xinhua news agency

Since the fresh negotiations were initiated in April, a long way has been taken to tackle the issues, Khatibzadeh said, adding that however, "the remaining path is not smooth".

"We hope that other parties could make their own decisions which will result in an agreement to benefit everyone," he pointed out.

Khatibzadeh noted that what Iranian officials unanimously agree upon is that Washington should remove the sanctions effectively, and then Iran will resume its obligations "as soon as full implementation of the deal is verified."

The spokesperson stressed that extra demands beyond the JCPOA by some parties are irrelevant to the potential deal.

Under the deal reached in 2015, Tehran agreed to roll back parts of its nuclear program in exchange for decreased economic sanctions.

However, Iran gradually stopped implementing parts of its commitments in May 2019, a year after the administration of former US President Donald Trump unilaterally abandoned the agreement and re-imposed sanctions on Tehran.

The JCPOA Joint Commission, attended by the US delegation indirectly, began in person meetings on April 6 in Vienna to continue previous discussions over a possible return of Washington to the deal and how to ensure its full and effective implementation.

After six rounds of talks, the parties recently said serious differences remain between Iran and the US for restoration of the deal.