Iran and world powers have made progress on how to reactivate the 2015 nuclear deal later abandoned by the United States, and an interim deal could be a way to gain time for a lasting deal, Iranian officials said Monday.
Tehran and the powers have met in Vienna since early April to work on measures to be taken, in relation to US sanctions and Iran’s non-compliance with the agreement. , to return Tehran and Washington to fully comply with the agreement.
“We are on the right track and progress has been made, but that does not mean that the talks in Vienna have reached the final stage,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told a weekly news conference. in Tehran.
“Practical solutions are still a long way off, but we have gone from general words to agreeing on specific steps towards the goal,” Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s ambassador to the UN nuclear surveillance agency, wrote on Twitter on Monday ( IAEA).
The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden, who took office in January, pledging to rejoin the deal, has said it is ready to remove “any sanctions that are inconsistent.” with the agreement, but has not explained what measures it means.
The Iranian clerical establishment has said it will not strictly abide by the 2015 agreement unless all sanctions re-imposed or added by former President Donald Trump after he left the deal in 2018 are canceled first.
Diplomats say the steps sequenced by each side could offer a solution, while Iranian officials told Reuters that high-stakes talks in Vienna could generate an interim agreement to give space to diplomacy in a lasting agreement.
“The May deadline is approaching … What is being discussed in Vienna in the short term are the main schemes of an interim agreement to give all parties more time to resolve complicated technical problems,” an Iranian official said.
He was referring to a law passed by Iran-dominated parliament that forces the government to tighten its nuclear stance if sanctions are not lifted.
The law required a short-term end to UN nuclear inspections from February 21, but Tehran and the IAEA agreed to maintain “necessary” control for up to three months.
Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Abbas Araqchi, told Iranian state media that “there is no discussion of an interim agreement or similar issues in the Vienna talks.”
However, another Iranian official said that if a political agreement was reached on technical measures to remove all sanctions, Tehran could suspend enrichment of up to 20% purity in exchange for a release of blocked Iranian funds in other countries.
Iran says oil revenues have frozen $ 20 billion in countries such as South Korea, Iraq and China under the U.S. sanctions regime since 2018.
“Unlocking Iran’s funds is a good start. An interim agreement will give us time to work on removing all sanctions on Iran,” the second Iranian official said.
Asked for comment, a U.S. State Department spokesman said talks were continuing in Vienna and that the U.S. team “has been exploring concrete approaches to the measures that both Iran and the United States should take. to return to mutual compliance “.
“The discussions have been thorough and thoughtful, if indirect … There has been no progress, but we did not expect this process to be easy or quick,” he added, saying delegations were expected to return home for consultations. sometime. but he did not know when.
Beyond the sanctions imposed in 2018, Trump added new ones, including the classification of Iran’s elite revolutionary guards as a terrorist group and the designation of the Iranian Central Bank for allegations of terrorist financing.
The EU sees good will to save the 2015 deal
The top EU diplomat, Josep Borrell, said he saw the will to save the 2015 deal, citing progress in the Vienna talks. Read more
“I think the two sides are really interested in reaching an agreement and have been moving from general issues to more focused issues, which are clearly, on the one hand, the lifting of sanctions and, on the other, the issues of ‘nuclear application,’ he said. .
Iran has violated the nuclear limits of the deal since Washington withdrew, recently increasing uranium enrichment to 20% fissile purity, a significant step toward bomb material.
The 2015 pact limited the level of enrichment purity by 3.67%, adequate to generate civilian nuclear power.
Complicating Biden’s goal of rejoining the deal, Tehran last week launched 60% purity enrichment at its main Natanz plant after a damaging explosion that blamed the sabotage of ‘Israel, which opposes diplomacy with Iran.
It takes about 90% fissile purity for a nuclear explosive, Tehran has repeatedly denied trying to enrich the weapons, although Western intelligence and the IAEA believe it once had a covert program. of atomic bomb that was left in service in 2003.
Our standards: the principles of trust of Thomson Reuters.