Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani said on Monday that his country's approach towards the indirect talks on lifting sanctions and facilitating the return of all parties to the 2015 nuclear deal remained unchanged, Paralel.Az reports citing Xinhua.

He made the remarks at a weekly press conference in the Iranian capital Tehran, responding to inquiries about potential changes to Iran's negotiating team after Ali Bagheri Kani, the country's chief nuclear negotiator, was appointed as caretaker foreign minister after the death of Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and questions about the prospect of postponing relevant negotiations until after Iran's presidential election on June 28.

He dismissed Western media reports alleging "secret" indirect talks between the United States and Iranian officials, including Bagheri Kani, in Oman earlier in the month, saying they lack credibility and were inaccurate.

He said that the exchange of indirect messages between Iran and the American side on sanctions removal had been ongoing without interruption. However, such interactions had focused solely on areas concerning the lifting of the embargoes and nuclear issues and had never gone beyond that framework.

Iran signed the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), with world powers in July 2015, agreeing to put some curbs on its nuclear program in return for the removal of the sanctions on the country. The United States, however, pulled out of the deal in May 2018 and reimposed its unilateral sanctions on Tehran, prompting the latter to drop some of its nuclear commitments under the deal.

The talks on the revival of the JCPOA began in April 2021 in Vienna, Austria. Despite several rounds of talks, no significant breakthrough has been achieved since the end of the last round in August 2022.

Amir-Abdollahian lost his life in a helicopter crash in northwestern Iran on May 19 as he was accompanying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on a trip to Tabriz, the capital of East Azarbaijan province. The crash also resulted in the deaths of Raisi and the other members of his accompanying team, who were all on board the same helicopter.