DOHA   -    Qatar’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani held talks with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the latest developments of efforts to revive the Iran nuclear deal, the state news agency QNA reported. This came during a phone call made by the Qatar minister with the chief US diplomat on Sunday. Bilateral ties and ways of developing them in various fields and issues of mutual concern also figured in the talks between the two sides, QNA said. Last week, Doha hosted EU-mediated indirect talks between Tehran and Washington to revive the 2015 nuclear deal. In May, Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani visited Tehran and held wide-ranging talks with Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi amid reports of Qatari mediation efforts to break the stalemate in the Vienna talks and unfreeze Iran’s frozen assets abroad.

The key disagreements between the US and Iran that have led to the stalemate include the de-listing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-linked organizations and guarantees that the future US administration will not walk out of the deal again.

Former US President Donald Trump pulled his country out of the landmark deal in May 2018, which was followed by the reinstatement of sanctions on Iran under the “maximum pressure” campaign.