Iran held a third round of talks with the three European countries led by Foreign Minister Ahmad Aragchi  in Geneva on January 13, local media reported. 

Deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi described as “serious, frank and constructive”. In a post on his X account, he said that the discussions involved ideas about Iran’s nuclear programme and the lifting of sanctions necessary to reach an agreement.

The three European powers, namely Britain, France, and Germany, are known collectively as the E3, and they are parties to a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran that curbed the country’s nuclear activity in return for the removal of sanctions.

The landmark deal unravelled after the United States, under then-president Donald Trump, pulled out and reimposed tough sanctions that prompted Tehran to scale back its commitments.

The three European countries and the European Union later mediated rounds of talks to revive the deal, which finally reached an impasse.

Iran renewed talks with the E3 when President Masoud Pezeshkian replaced Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May 2024.

The first round of discussions was held in October 2024 in New York, and a second one in November in Geneva, where they agreed to continue the diplomatic talks.  

According to ISNA, in the recent negotiations, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi met counterparts from the three European countries and discussed “issues of common interest, especially negotiations on the lifting of sanctions, nuclear issues, and the worrying situation in the region.”

“There was a consensus that negotiations should resume and that in order to reach an agreement, a suitable atmosphere should be created and maintained by all parties. It was agreed that the talks would continue,” Gharibabadi said in his tweet.

Takht-Ravanchi was also set to meet separately with the European Union's Deputy Coordinator Enrique Mora in Geneva on January 14.

The negotiations are held as Iran has expanded its nuclear programme to levels that western countries say have no civilian justification.

Prospects for restoring the 2015 deal have further diminished with Trump’s re-election.