Iran responds to EU's nuclear offer, but not yet done

Last week, European Union officials sent the final text of a revived deal to limit Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

On Monday night, Iran responded to the proposal in writing, meeting a deadline set by the bloc. While Iran's written response has not been public yet, the country's chief adviser to negotiations has said that an agreement is closer than ever, but not yet done.

But a regional diplomat, who has been briefed on the matter, said Iran has reservations about the possibility of a future president pulling out of the deal and imposing new sanctions on the country, in what would be a repeat of the May 2018 decision by former US President Donald Trump to leave the agreement and impose financial penalties on Tehran.

The diplomat said there was progress in bringing closer to views, especially in the issue of indirect sanctions on Iranian companies working abroad.

The Iranian side has promised to compensate Iran if future US administrations decide to withdraw from the deal, which is the main issue facing the revival of the deal, he said. An adviser to the Iranian negotiating team at the talks on the deal in Vienna, Mohammad Marandi, said on Tuesday that Iran was looking for guarantees that if a future US administration withdraws from the deal, it will have to pay a price. Marandi said in a tweet on Monday that there were differences on two other issues, but he didn't offer any specifics. CNN is looking for comment from the US State Department. The negotiations between the US and Iran are currently being negotiated by Qatar and the EU. Qatar's deputy foreign minister Mohammed Al Khulaifi was sent to Tehran over the weekend for meetings with Iran's negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani. An EU spokesperson Nabila Massrali said that Iran's response had been received on Monday night and that the bloc was now in consultation with the US and other participants of the deal, namely the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action JCPOA. The US called on Iran on Monday to drop extraneous demands that go beyond the scope of the deal, as well as an earlier Iranian request to remove Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps IRGC from its Foreign Terrorist Organizations list. If Iran wants these sanctions lifted, they will need to change their underlying conduct, and they will have to change the dangerous activities that gave rise to the sanctions in the first place, said Ned Price, State Department spokesperson. After the US withdrawal, Iran has been violating the agreements it made under the deal, and expanded its nuclear program, according to EU's Josep Borrell. Iran has said a final deal should protect the rights of the country, and that it will allow the lifting of sanctions, which could free up tens of billions of dollars in oil and gas revenue and boost Iran's struggling economy. Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Monday that if the US showed a realistic and flexible response to Iran's offer, they would be at the point of agreement. Amir-Abdollahian said Tehran was ready to reach a conclusion through a foreign ministerial meeting and that it would announce the final agreement if its views were accepted. The upcoming days are important, he said. A State Department spokeswoman told CNN last week that the US was ready to make a deal on the basis of the EU's proposals.