Tehran, Jul 2 (IANS): A senior Iranian lawmaker has said that they still cannot express "definite optimism" that Washington will remove sanctions against Tehran.

"We had reached a draft agreement in Vienna, but some issues remained to be agreed upon in this draft, and most of them are related to the sanctions that the US wants to maintain," Abolfazl Amouei, spokesman of the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, told semi-official Mehr News Agency.

Doha talks, as the continuation of Vienna negotiations, were aimed at resolving the remaining issues and to "lift the sanctions in the interests of the people," he said, expressing hope that "the proposed model would accelerate the talks to resolve the remaining issues".

Amouei did not elaborate on the "proposed model," but reiterated the Iranians' remarks that "if the US is ready to lift sanctions, negotiations will be concluded".

After three months of pause, Iran and the US held indirect talks in Doha, capital of Qatar, earlier this week, but two days of intensive negotiations resulted in no agreement to settle their differences, Xinhua news agency reported.

Iran signed the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), with the world powers in July 2015, agreeing to curb its nuclear program in return for the removal of sanctions on the country. However, former US President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the JCPOA in May 2018 and reimposed unilateral sanctions on Iran, prompting the latter to drop some of its commitments under the pact.

The Iranian nuclear talks began in April 2021 in Vienna but were suspended in March this year because of political differences between Tehran and Washington.