Iran’s nuclear talks: US officials say there is a long way to go, despite some progress

Representatives of the countries that are still members of the agreement – China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and Iran – and the European Union have met several times in Vienna this month to work to save the agreement. A US delegation, which left the pact in 2018, was also in the Austrian capital for indirect talks with Iran.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday that “nuclear talks have progressed by about 60-70%, and if Americans act honestly, we will get results soon,” according to the president’s official website.

However, Iranian demands continue to be inconsistent with what the United States appears ready to offer. US officials’ assessment of progress has been lower. They said both sides had not yet reached an agreement on the steps needed to fully return to compliance with the agreement, officially called the Global Plan of Action.

“We have made some progress,” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday, describing talks in which US partners are telling Iranians “both the nuclear restrictions they will have to accept and the measures to be taken.” reduction of the resulting penalties. ”

Although the Joint Commission for the JCPOA said on Tuesday that it had “decided to set up a third expert group to begin examining the possible sequencing of those measures”, Sullivan said on Wednesday that talks in Vienna were still focused on the substance of the measures. “What sanctions are in place and what nuclear restrictions Iran accepts.”

A senior State Department official said Wednesday that the two sides are no longer looking at the incremental and confidence-building steps each party can take.

“At the moment, the talks taking place in Vienna are related to full compliance for full compliance,” they said in a call to reporters. “It will not necessarily rule out anything, but I think at this point the discussions in which all participants are involved are what the US should do to enter into full compliance and what Iran should do to enter into full compliance.”

“We will not accept the process in which the United States acts first and removes all sanctions it undertakes to remove before Iran does anything,” the senior State Department official added.

Iran has a “pretty clear sense” of US sanctions

The official said, after the last round of meetings in Vienna, that Iran has “a pretty clear sense” of the sanctions that the US will lift and the sanctions that it would not lift. The official will not detail these sanctions, but the Biden administration has said it retains its right to maintain existing sanctions related to Iran’s support for power groups or terrorism in the region.

Tehran has repeatedly argued that the United States must lift all Trump-era sanctions before it ceases to violate its commitments under the agreement. A senior Iranian official reiterated this position this week.

“All sanctions imposed during Trump’s maximum pressure campaign must be lifted,” they said. “We cannot accept the classification of sanctions.”

Iran also wants the US to provide an “objective guarantee” that it will not withdraw from the nuclear deal if it re-registers, according to the Iranian official.

Biden's top national security officials brief Congress on the withdrawal of Afghanistan

The senior State Department official suggested that both requests are non-beginner.

“We have provided Iran with a number of examples of the types of sanctions that we believe we should lift to return to compliance and the sanctions that we believe we should not lift and will not lift as part of a return to compliance with the JCPOA. , then the third category, which are difficult cases – difficult cases, because this is a complex process, but also because the Trump administration has deliberately imposed and declared sanctions by invoking terrorism and other labels, even if it was done really in order to prevent or prevent a return to JCPOA compliance, “the official said.

“We have to go through every sanction to see if they have been legitimately imposed or not,” the official added. Past US officials have suggested they will maintain sanctions in place for Iran’s support for empowerment groups or human rights violations.

At Iran’s request for a guarantee of the future US commitment, the senior State Department official said that “it is clear that there is no guarantee”.

“This is a political agreement in which, and it was clear at the time of the JPCOA, that it is a sovereign right of all participants to decide whether or not they want to maintain their participation,” they said. “If the Biden administration decides to reach an agreement with Iran and P5 + 1 in order to return to compliance with the agreement, it would intend to act in good faith and not give up the agreement for nothing. reason.”

.Source