What’s happening in Vienna?
A joint commission responsible for overseeing the 2015 Iran nuclear deal is looking for a way for the US to rejoin the agreement – leaving Donald Trump – and lifting its sanctions against Tehran, and to end Iran with the retaliation of the retaliation of the limits nuclear program.
During this week, experts from the remaining signatories of the agreement – Iran, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Russia, China and the EU – met at the Grand Hotel in Vienna and sent messages to the US delegation over the road in a neighboring hotel transferred. On Friday, the joint commission will meet again to examine whether enough progress has been made to continue talks on reviving the agreement, which lifted economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for combating its nuclear program.
What progress has been made and why now?
It took 76 days from the inauguration of Joe Biden before the talks began, in part because both parties had to go through the back channels to put together a format, provide a framework for an agenda and square domestic support. On Monday, the US and Iran agreed to compile two lists. First, they must agree on a complete inventory of the sanctions that the US must lift in order to once again comply with the UN resolutions on the nuclear deal. Second, they must compile a complete list of the restrictions that Iran must adopt in order to comply with them again. Iran will not speak directly to the US, so it is cumbersome.
Is it easy to identify the steps the US needs to take?
No. When the US signed the original agreement in 2015, they made a critical distinction between lifting existing, nuclear-related sanctions and other sanctions they would retain in connection with Iranian acts of terrorism, its ballistic missile program, human rights violations or cybercrimes. Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is now calling for all sanctions imposed since January 2016 to be lifted on the date the 2015 agreement goes into effect. But the US says that some of the sanctions imposed by Trump after the date are not nuclear-related and therefore do not need to be lifted. For example, hackers backed by Iran were approved in September, as were three judges, three deputy directors of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization involved in the ballistic missile program. The Biden administration has even added sanctions against human rights violators. Some individuals and entities have been approved for more than one reason.
Questions and answers
What is the nuclear deal with Iran?
In July 2015, Iran and a six-nation negotiating group reached an important agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that ended a 12-year stalemate over Tehran’s nuclear program. The agreement reached in Vienna after nearly two years of intensive talks limited the Iranian program, reassuring the rest of the world that it could not develop nuclear weapons, in exchange for sanction relief.
At the heart of the JCPOA is a direct bargain: Iran’s acceptance of strict limits on its nuclear program in exchange for an escape from the sanctions that grew up more than a decade before the agreement surrounding its economy. Under the agreement, Iran disconnected two-thirds of its centrifuge, shipped 98% of its enriched uranium and filled its plutonium production reactor with concrete. Tehran has also adopted extensive monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has verified ten times since the agreement, and so recently in February that Tehran has complied with its terms. In return, all nuclear-related sanctions were lifted in January 2016, reconnecting Iran to world markets.
The six main powers involved in the key talks with Iran were in a group known as the P5 + 1: the five permanent members of the UN – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the USA – and Germany. The nuclear deal was also enshrined in a UN Security Council resolution incorporating it into international law. The then 15 members of the council unanimously signed the agreement.
On May 8, 2018, US President Donald Trump withdraws his country from the agreement. Iran announced its partial withdrawal from the nuclear deal a year later. Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, said the US could return to the deal if Iran fulfills its obligations.
Saeed Kamali Dehghan, Iran correspondent
In an effort to make it harder to dismantle its sanctions, Trump has also blurred the boundaries between nuclear and non-nuclear sanctions by re-marking many nuclear-related sanctions as terrorist-related. As a foreign terrorist organization, Trump therefore mentions not only the Revolutionary Guards, but also the central bank, the Ministry of Oil and the National Iranian Oil Company. Trump has argued that they are sending cash to Hezbollah and other organizations. The core of the shuttle diplomacy is to reach an agreed list of post-2016 sanctions that are considered by both parties to be nuclear-related. According to one account, there are 1,500 sanctions that can be categorized.
Are there guidelines on what sanctions should be lifted?
Not really. The nuclear deal obliges the US to “refrain from any policy specifically intended to directly or adversely affect the normalization of trade and economic relations with Iran [with the deal]”And to prevent” interference with the realization of the full benefit by Iran of the lifting of sanctions “. Iran relies on the wording to argue that most sanctions will be lifted.
What, in turn, should Iran do?
The successive steps that Iran has taken from the agreement can be easily set out, as each was advertised by Iran at the time the step was taken. Iran has exceeded the uranium purity threshold of 3.67%, the size of its uranium stock exceeds the limit of 300 kg; he uses advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium faster than the agreement allows, and this has limited the terms of the UN’s nuclear inspector visits. These discussions are terribly technical, but urgent. Iran announced this week that it had purified 55 kg of uranium at 20% in just three months, indicating a faster production rate than the 10 kg per month required by parliament, with the spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization claiming that its production rate ‘up to 40%’ faster.
What happens after the lists of steps to be taken are mutually agreed upon?
Iran appears to be saying it will not return its steps until US sanctions are lifted and this has been confirmed to its satisfaction. It therefore requires that Biden not only sign an executive order or a piece of paper, but that the changes have a real impact on Iran’s ability to do business. The US has called for a step-by-step, step-by-step agreement so that everyone can make sure the other side fulfills their obligations. Robert Malley, the US envoy to Iran, said: “I think what we can essentially exclude is the maximumist demands that the United States must do everything first, and only then will Iran act; I think no one is under the impression that this would be a viable proposal. ”
Is there a deadline?
Iran has presidential elections in June, but both sides, eager to show no vulnerabilities in the bargaining, say it is not a target date. Iranian experts disagree on the extent to which the politics of an Iranian president really influence decisions on the nuclear file in the Islamic Republic. Some believe that Iran’s nuclear policy is the result of a hidden consensus in which non-elected bodies, including the supreme leader, make the calls. Malley said: “We will negotiate with whoever is president.” But it seems logical that Washington prefers to negotiate with a president who is better-minded in the West than a leader planning to build a resistance economy.
Should the enforceability of this agreement be changed?
Iran’s confidence in the 2015 agreement has weakened, as Trump’s decision to dissolve the agreement had no cost to the US from the Iranian point of view. The 2015 agreement was a non-binding political agreement with incentives for both parties to abide by it. But Biden needs the support of two-thirds of Congress to turn this agreement into an international treaty. An alternative would be a congressional executive agreement that requires approval by a simple majority vote by both houses of Congress.
What happens if they implement an agreement?
Iran says ‘that’s it’, but the US wants to review the outdated clauses of the agreement, as envisaged in the original agreement, which limits Iran’s missile program and its regional behavior. Some of these can be addressed in a treaty. Others through diplomacy. Republicans in Congress claim that Biden will no longer have the leverage to get Iran to the negotiating table on these issues, as the sanctions bloc would be thrown away.
Sounds off …
A myriad of forces will try to disrupt the talks. Israel attacked an Iranian ship in the Gulf. Saudi Arabia is nervous. Hardliners in both countries, and the militant diaspora, all have a voice if not a veto. Human rights activists do not want their detained friends and family to be set aside at the negotiating table.