The United States and Iran have given conflicting accounts on the level of progress they said they achieved regarding the reviving of the 2015 nuclear deal.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said at a press briefing: "Our view is that we are close," the Washington Times reported.
She indicated the possibility of reaching an agreement on the nuclear deal with Tehran in the coming days.
Psaki added: "We have been close for some time now. We also know from having been through these negotiations before that the end of the negotiations is always when the difficult and challenging parts of the conversation typically take place."
Her statement contradicted Tehran's position, as the Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, announced earlier yesterday that negotiations to revive the nuclear agreement with major powers "are getting knottier by the hour."
Iran, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany are still engaged in their eighth round of talks which began on December 27. They are completing a draft text of an agreement to revive the deal.
However, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Twitter that talks are being halted, after negotiators failed to bridge major differences over how to restore the landmark accord. Sides had been close to salvaging the accord, but Borrell didn’t say when talks may be able to resume.
