INTERNATIONAL: Iran and the United States have made progress in the latest round of indirect talks on salvaging the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran's foreign ministry has announced on Monday, 3 January.

Foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh has told a news conference that there was progress in four areas, including sanctions against Tehran, during the eighth round of talks, which resumed in Vienna on December 27.

Tehran has focused on one side of the original bargain, lifting sanctions against it, despite scant progress on reining in its atomic activities.

The 2015 deal has lifted sanctions against Tehran in exchange for restrictions on its atomic activities. Then-President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of it in 2018, re-imposing U.S. sanctions, and Iran later breached many of the deal's nuclear restrictions and kept pushing well beyond them.

Iran refuses to meet directly with U.S. officials, meaning that other parties - Russia, China, France, Britain, Germany and the European Union - must shuttle between the two sides.

The United States has repeatedly expressed frustration at this format, saying it slows down the process, and Western officials still suspect Iran is simply playing for time.

The 2015 deal extended the time Iran would need to obtain enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb, if it chose to, to at least a year from around two to three months.

^{PHOTO: NEWS CONFERENCE BY IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESMAN, SAEED KHATIBZADEH, SPEAKING ABOUT NUCLEAR AGREEMENT / KHATIBZADEH SAYING THERE HAS BEEN PROGRESS IN THE LATEST ROUND OF TALKS}