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2.5 Iran says it will return to stalled Vienna talks on nuclear deal revival within few weeks
Iran on September 21 said it planned to return to the stalled Vienna talks on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, or JCPOA, within a few weeks.
Amid ongoing concerns among the Western powers that Tehran has been dragging its feet over resuming the talks since its new hardline government took power in August, state news agency IRNA reported Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh as saying: “As previously emphasised, the Vienna talks will resume soon and over the next few weeks.” He added: “Every meeting requires prior coordination and the preparation of an agenda.”
Russia, one of the JCPOA signatories, has said any restarted talks should not start from scratch, but on the basis of what was previously negotiated during six intensive rounds of talks that took place prior to the Iranian presidential election.
One possible difficulty that future rounds of talks would have to overcome is that while the US has agreed to lift most of its economic sanctions on Iran that are linked to the JCPOA—mainly sanctions introduced following May 2018 after ex-US president Donald Trump unilaterally walked out of the multilateral nuclear accord—it has not agreed to remove sanctions related to claimed human rights abuses.
Tehran, meanwhile, wants some protection from any future US walkout from the JCPOA, should it be relaunched. It is seeking guarantees that the US would, if in breach of UN security council resolutions, pay compensation.
US President Joe Biden in his September 21 speech to the UN general assembly in New York vowed that Washington was seeking “a return to the JCPOA”.
He added: “We are prepared to return to full compliance if Iran does the same.” Raisi was later scheduled to give his first address to the UN general assembly by video link.
There have been media reports that the European powers made strong efforts on the sidelines of the UN general assembly this week to convince Iran to hold a joint meeting with the other nuclear deal signatories in New York. Iran, however, has agreed to no such meeting.
Instead, the new foreign minister of Iran, Hossein Amirabdollahian, will separately meet the five other remaining signatories of the nuclear deal—France, the UK, Russia, China and Germany.
The Raisi administration is yet to announce its chief negotiator for the Vienna talks.
The aim of the nuclear deal is to achieve verifiable Iranian compliance with conditions and limits aimed at ensuring Iran's nuclear development programme remains entirely civilian in nature. In return, Iran is supposed to be shielded from heavy economic sanctions.
10 IRAN Country Report October 2021 www.intellinews.com