Indirect talks in Qatar's capital between Iran and the US on reviving a 2015 nuclear deal have concluded with "no progress made", a State Department spokesperson said late Wednesday.

The negotiations in Doha were an attempt to reboot long-running European Union-mediated talks on a return to the 2015 agreement between Tehran and world powers.

No time limit was previously announced on the most-recent negotiations, which had been taking place in a Doha hotel with special envoy Robert Malley heading the US delegation.

But by Wednesday night, a US State Department spokesperson said the "indirect discussions in Doha have concluded".

"While we are very grateful to the EU for its efforts, we are disappointed that Iran has, yet again, failed to respond positively to the EU's initiative and therefore that no progress was made," the spokesperson told AFP in an email.

EU coordinator Enrique Mora had earlier said the parties engaged in "two intense days of proximity talks" in Doha that had "not yet" yielded the progress the EU team sought.

"We will keep working with even greater urgency to bring back on track a key deal for non-proliferation and regional stability," he said on Twitter earlier in the day, posting a photo of himself meeting with Iran's chief negotiator Ali Bagheri.

The comments came after Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said that the talks would last only two days.

The parties have "exchanged views and proposals on the remaining issues", he said.

An EU source told AFP that the discussions, which come two weeks before US President Joe Biden makes his first official visit to the region, were supposed to last several days.

- 'Red lines' -

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian had said Iran was "serious" about finalising a deal in Doha, but that it wouldn't cross its "red lines".

"If the American side has serious intentions and is realistic, an agreement is available at this stage and in this round of negotiations," he was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA earlier Wednesday.

IRNA has previously described the "red lines" as lifting all sanctions related to the nuclear agreement, creating a mechanism to verify they have been lifted and making sure the US does not withdraw once again from the deal.

Washington has "made clear our readiness to quickly conclude and implement a deal on mutual return to full compliance", the US State Department spokesperson said after indirect talks concluded.

"Yet in Doha, as before, Iran raised issues wholly unrelated to the JCPOA (Iran nuclear deal) and apparently is not ready to make a fundamental decision on whether it wants to revive the deal or bury it," the spokesperson said.

Differences between Tehran and Washington have notably included Iran's demand that its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps be removed from a US terror list.

- 'Trump method' -

The arch-rivals have been meeting indirectly -- passing messages from different areas of the same hotel -- to try to break an impasse in attempts to restart the 2015 agreement.

That deal, which lifted sanctions in return for Iran curbing its nuclear programme, was abandoned unilaterally in 2018 by former US president Donald Trump, who reimposed biting sanctions.

Iranian officials earlier said they were hoping for progress in Qatar -- but warned the Americans to abandon the "Trump method" of negotiating.

"We hope that, God willing, we can reach a positive and acceptable agreement if the United States abandons the Trump method," Iranian government spokesman Ali Bahadori-Jahromi said.

He described the method as "non-compliance with international law and past agreements and disregard for the legal rights of the Iranian people".

The international talks on reviving the deal began in April 2021 in Vienna, before the process stalled in March.

US citizen in Iran prison appeals to Biden for deal
Washington (AFP) June 29, 2022 - A US citizen held for nearly seven years in Iran made an appeal from prison Wednesday to President Joe Biden, urging a deal to free Americans regardless of the outcome of nuclear diplomacy.

In an op-ed published in The New York Times, 50-year-old Iranian-American Siamak Namazi said he was concerned about repercussions he might suffer for speaking out while confined to Tehran's infamous Evin prison.

"But I am compelled to break that silence now because I believe that the Biden administration's approach to rescuing Americans in distress in Iran has failed spectacularly so far and unless the president intervenes immediately, we are likely to languish in this abyss for the foreseeable future," he wrote.

"Mr. Biden, I implore you to put the lives of innocent American detainees above Washington politics and make the tough decisions necessary to free all of us immediately."

Namazi said he had been hopeful last year as the new Biden administration opened talks with Iran on returning to a 2015 nuclear deal, with US officials indicating an agreement was impossible without freeing four Americans.

"That was the right approach. But forgoing an opportunity to free us because the nuclear talks have stalled is not," he wrote.

Namazi, a businessman, was arrested in October 2015 and handed a 10-year sentence on charges of seeking to overthrow the clerical state, with evidence cited including his fellowships at Washington think tanks.

His father, former UNICEF official Baquer Namazi, was taken into custody in February 2016 as he tried to see him.

The now 85-year-old was ordered released in 2020 but his supporters say he has been denied a passport to travel, despite mounting health concerns, as Iran does not recognize dual nationality.

Iranian media have earlier indicated that a deal was in the works to free Iranian-Americans in return for South Korea releasing some $7 billion frozen on US requests.

Iran released five prisoners in 2016 to coincide with the nuclear deal, which promised sanctions relief in return for Tehran drastically scaling back its sensitive atomic work.

Former US president Donald Trump renounced the accord and the Biden administration has been increasingly pessimistic about returning to the accord, although it is holding a new round of indirect talks this week in Qatar.

Two other US citizens are known to be jailed in Iran -- conservationist Morad Tahbaz, who additionally holds British citizenship, and businessman Emad Shargi.

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US, Iran chief negotiators to start nuclear talks in Qatar
Doha (AFP) June 28, 2022
Chief negotiators from the United States and Iran began indirect talks in Qatar on Tuesday, bidding to remove obstacles that have stalled attempts to revive a landmark nuclear deal. The indirect negotiations headed by US special envoy Robert Malley and Iran's Ali Bagheri come after more than a year of European Union-mediated talks in Vienna on a return to the 2015 agreement between Tehran and world powers. The Doha talks also come just two weeks before US President Joe Biden's first visit to the ... read more