WEN (AP) – Officials from five world powers on Tuesday embarked on a new attempt to bring the United States back into the founding of the 2015 nuclear deal it signed with Iran, a delicate diplomatic dance that addresses the concerns and interests of both Washington and Tehran.
The meeting in Vienna of delegates from Russia, China, Germany, France, Britain and Iran took place when the US was to begin its own indirect talks with Iran. This would be one of the first signs of tangible progress in efforts to bring both countries into line, limiting Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for easing US and international sanctions.
After the closed meetings of the signatories of the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Russian delegate, Mikhail Ulyanov, tweeted that the initial talks were ‘successful’.
‘The recovery of JCPOA will not take place immediately. It will take a while. How long? Nobody knows, “he wrote. “The most important thing after today’s Joint Committee meeting is that practical work has begun to achieve this goal.”
In 2018, then-President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of the agreement and opted for what he calls a maximum-pressure campaign that includes recovery and additional U.S. sanctions.
Since then, Iran has gradually violated the restrictions in the agreement, such as the amount of enriched uranium it can store and the purity with which it can be enriched. Tehran’s steps have been taken to push the other countries into the agreement to do more to compensate for the crippling US sanctions imposed under Trump.
US President Joe Biden, who was under Vice President Barack Obama when the original agreement was negotiated, said he wanted to bring the US back into the JCPOA, but that Iran should stop its transgressions.
Iran claims that the US first violated the agreement with its withdrawal, so Washington must take the first step by lifting sanctions.
After the meeting in Vienna, Iranian state television quoted Iran’s negotiator Abbas Araghchi as repeating the message during the opening round.
“The lifting of US sanctions is the first and most necessary action to revive the agreement,” Araghchi said. “Iran is fully prepared to reverse its activities and return to full implementation of the agreement immediately after the sanctions are lifted.”
During the meeting, the participants agreed to set up two groups at expert level, one on lifting sanctions and one on core issues, which “had the task of identifying concrete measures to be taken by Washington and Tehran for full implementation. of JCPOA, “Ulyanov tweeted.
They should start working immediately and report their conclusions to the chief negotiators.
The ultimate goal of the agreement is to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb, something he insists he does not want to do. Iran now has enough enriched uranium to make a bomb, but is nowhere near the amount it had before the nuclear deal was signed.
In the latest announced violation, Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for Iran’s civilian nuclear program, said officials had begun mechanical testing of an IR-9 prototype centrifuge. The centrifuge would enrich uranium 50 times faster than the IR-1s allowed under the agreement, according to the semi-official ISNA news agency.
The clock is ticking to try to get the US back into the agreement, with the aim of getting Iran to comply again, with a number of issues to consider.
At the end of February, Iran began restricting international inspections of its nuclear facilities, but under a last-minute agreement reached during a trip to Tehran by Rafael Grossi, the head of the UN-based nuclear watchdog of the UN, worked out, some access has been retained.
Under the agreement, Iran will no longer share surveillance material from its nuclear facilities with the IAEA, but it has promised to keep the ties for three months. It will then hand them over to the IAEA if the easing of sanctions is granted. Otherwise, Iran has promised to erase the recordings and narrow the window for a diplomatic breakthrough.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also called on the United States to act swiftly in March, pointing out that Washington, closer to its country’s June election, is dealing with a government. who are unable to make progress with the core discussions.
In addition, one of the JCPOA’s most important so-called sunset clauses, a United Nations arms embargo against Iran, expired last year and others will lapse in the coming years.
The small window for negotiation will make it even harder for the US to try to bring new concerns into the agreement, such as the local influence of Iran and its ballistic missile program.
Although he did not take part in the JCPOA talks, a US delegation led by the special envoy of the government for Iran, but Rob Malley was also in the Austrian capital.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Ned Price said the delegation was there to hold talks on the working groups set up by the Europeans.
Price said on Monday the talks were a “healthy step forward”, but added that “we do not expect an early or immediate breakthrough as these discussions, in our expectation, will be difficult.”
“We do not currently expect direct talks with Iran,” he said. ‘Even though we remain open to them, of course. And so we’ll have to see how things go. ‘
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Tuesday that there was value in having US diplomats on the ground in Vienna, although they would not be in direct talks with Iran.
“I think it’s important to convey to our partners … that we believe diplomacy is the best step forward,” Psaki said.
Zarif on Friday reiterated Iran’s position that no further talks on the JCPOA are needed, as the agreement and its parameters have already been negotiated.
No Iran-US meeting. Unnecessary, “he tweeted.
The JCPOA commission is expected to meet again on Friday, and Enrique Mora, the European Union official who chaired the talks, meanwhile said he would reach out individually to all sides.
“As coordinator, I will be intensively separating contact here in Vienna with all relevant parties, including the US,” he tweeted.
UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric called for a response to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ remarks at the meetings, saying, “We welcome all these efforts by JCPOA participants … to engage in constructive dialogue. We hope this is a first step in the right direction. ”
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Associated Press authors Geir Moulson in Berlin, Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed.