The Biden government on Thursday took its first real step to resume diplomatic efforts to re-enter the nuclear deal in Iran. But U.S. officials warn that this is not a “breakthrough” that America will immediately reintroduce into the agreement it left almost three years ago.
President Joe Biden’s team has offered a solid line since taking office a month ago: in order for the US to rejoin the agreement, Iran must once again comply with the constraints of the treaty on the core development of the treaty .
Simply put, Tehran will have to lower its levels of uranium enrichment to the limits specified in the Iran agreement before America will lift any sanctions against the country. It was an attitude that Biden repeated during a pre-Super Bowl interview with CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell.
But on Thursday, the position softened – albeit only slightly.
First, the Biden government has formally revoked a failed attempt by former President Donald Trump to reinstate United Nations sanctions against Iran. Then it eased restrictions on domestic travel for Iranian officials working at the UN. And then, after a senior diplomat from the European Union suggested that heinformal meetingWith Washington, Tehran and the other signatories to the nuclear deal, the United States has said it will be willing to join.
“The United States accepts an invitation from the High Representative of the European Union to attend a meeting … to discuss a diplomatic way forward on Iran’s nuclear program,” said a spokesman for the foreign ministry. Ned Price said in a statement.
If anyone gets too excited, senior State Department officials told reporters shortly thereafter in a briefing that the Biden government had just agreed to talk, nothing more.
“We realize that this is only a first step in saying that we are prepared to attend the meeting that would be convened by the EU,” said one of the officials, who, like the others in the briefing, the background spoke per the State Department’s ground rules. “We realize that this is not a breakthrough in itself. Even the first meeting itself may not be a breakthrough. So we are not going to violate it for what it is not, but it is a step. “It is important that the same official also said that it is unclear whether Iran will even agree to a meeting.
However, Biden on Friday reiterated his new position on his administration and told the Munich Security Conference that “we are prepared to enter into negotiations with the P5 + 1 on Iran’s nuclear program.” The P5 + 1 refers to all the signatories of the 2015 agreement.
This means that this move should not be seen much more as an opening gambit – but still one that matters, as the US and Iran got stuck in a stalemate over nuclear negotiations and did not want to pull either.
Interestingly, it seems that the Biden government may have helped orchestrate this opening gambit, although it apparently came spontaneously from the Europeans. Someone familiar with the government’s thinking said that the EU’s offer and the acceptance of America ‘was definitely a coordinated effort.’
After the government concluded its Iran policy review earlier this month, in which US officials discussed the merits of reintroducing the original nuclear power, as opposed to a new and stronger agreement, Biden’s team chose to continue with the return to the agreement.
But the US did not want to look like it was moving to Iran first. Agreeing with an informal conversation in which Washington and Tehran can sit down and determine how and when uranium enrichment will decrease and sanctions will increase will help solve the problem.
However, there is still a long way to go. “Getting to the table is the easier part,” said Henry Rome, an Iranian expert at Eurasia Group, an advisory firm. “I think the two sides will be ‘yes’, but it will be more complicated – and time consuming – than it may seem.”
“You do not negotiate with people who try to kill you”
One reason why this is complicated is that Iran has so far shown no willingness to take part in an EU mediation talks.
Only once the US “unconditionally lifting all sanctions imposed, reinstated or re-labeled by Trump” will Iran immediately undo the progress it has made since leaving the US agreement in 2018 “, the Secretary of State said. , Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted Thursday. ‘Simply’.
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Iranian state media also quoted Mohammadali Ale-Hashem, the Friday prayer leader in the city of Tabriz, saying the move by the Biden government was a defeat for America. ‘
Some experts fear that the US may have made a mistake. “It is telling that Iranians are already calling the moves a ‘defeat for America,'” said Gabriel Noronha, who has worked for the State Department from 2019 to this year.
Biden’s team has “unilaterally reversed major sanctions and restrictions in the hope that it will lead to talks,” Noronha said. “If we are going to negotiate with Iran like this, they are going to have our lunch.”
It does not help Monday in Iraq, rockets presumably by a Iran-backed militia killed a non-US civilian contractor on a military base in Erbil. Nine others were injured, including four U.S. contractors and one service member, according to Col. Wayne Marotto, the spokesman for the US coalition against ISIS.
The violence has led some experts in the Middle East to say it is not the right time for the US and Iran to pursue diplomacy. “You are not negotiating with people who are pushing, pushing, pushing, pinching and trying to kill you at the same time,” Michael Knights, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told Josh Rogin, Washington Post, on Thursday. . .
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also unhappy with this development. A statement from his office on Friday said that the government’s long-standing attitude towards the Iran agreement “has not changed”, adding: “Israel believes that returning to the old agreement will pave Iran’s path to a nuclear arsenal Lane.”
But the Rome of the Eurasia group told me that Biden’s government probably believes that the only way to make progress on the nuclear issue is through diplomacy, no matter how distasteful some may view it.
“The beginning of negotiations represents the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end,” he said.