DUBAI (REUTERS) - Iranian President-Elect Ebrahim Raisi said on Monday (June 22) that the United States violated the 2015 nuclear deal and the European Union failed to fulfil its commitments, speaking in his first news conference since his victory in Friday's election.

       The United States and the EU should fulfil their pledges under the deal, Mr Raisi said in Teheran.

       His comments came as the European Union's foreign policy chief expressed optimism on Sunday that Iran and world powers could still clinch a deal to revive their 2015 nuclear accord, though time is running out.

       Mr Josep Borrell said an agreement was “very close”, and could make the Middle East safer and bring relief to millions of Iranians hit by oil and financial sanctions which the United States re-imposed when it left the deal three years ago.

       “On these negotiations, we are running out of time,” Mr Borrell told a group of journalists in Beirut.

       “We have invested a lot of political capital ... so I hope that the result of the elections is not going to be the last obstacle that will ruin the negotiation process,” he said.

       “As far as I know... this is not going to be the case.”

       Friday’s presidential election in Iran delivered victory to Mr Ebrahim Raisi, who takes over from the pragmatist Hassan Rouhani in August. But the final word on policy lies with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, suggesting continuity in Iran’s outlook.

       Iran and the six world powers adjourned their talks in Vienna on Sunday for consultations in their capitals, the EU’s envoy to the talks said. The head of the Iranian delegation, noting earlier that the talks would adjourn, said remaining differences could not be easily overcome.

       The EU is also a party to the talks between Iran and world powers: the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany.

       Mr Borrell, who met Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif in Turkey on Friday, said he remained optimistic.

       Dr Zarif that the text under discussion at the nuclear talks was getting “cleaner and cleaner”, or closer to agreement, and a deal could be struck before Raisi’s new government takes office.

       “We are supposed to leave office by mid-August, and I think there is a good possibility we can reach an agreement way before mid-August,” he told a diplomatic forum in the southern Turkish resort of Antalya on Saturday.

       “I don’t think (the remaining issues) are insurmountable”.

       Dr Zarif described Mr Raisi as a reasonable man and said “the foreign policy of Iran, which I believe is based on consensus, will continue.”

       Mr Raisi, like Ayatollah Khamenei, has supported the nuclear talks as a route to cancelling US sanctions that have laid waste to the Islamic Republic’s oil-based economy and dramatically worsened economic hardships, stirring widespread discontent.

       In 2018, former US President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the deal, which aimed to curb Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for lifting many international sanctions on Teheran. President Joe Biden has sought to return to the agreement.

       Mr Borrell said a deal “could make the world, and especially the Middle East, safer, and (bring) the Iranian population in a better situation.”

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