‘Decisive Hours’ For Iran Nuclear Talks?

Speaking to reporters at the venue of the talks at hotel Coburg in the Austrian capital Vienna, Mora told Iran International’s correspondent that he also read about the deadline in a Bloomberg report, saying someone had said the deal would be revived “in 72 hours or nothing.” “I read that in Bloomberg but I don’t know who said that.” 

He confirmed that the negotiations will “absolutely” continue after the rumored 72 hours, adding that the talks will go on after Monday but “the weekend can be useful.” 

Talks over Iran’s atomic program seem to continue beyond Friday as United States and Iranian negotiators tackle European proposals to bridge gaps.

Iran’s chief negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani met Friday with Mora, the official acting as a go-between with a US team led by special envoy Rob Malley, and with Wang Kun, China’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as Iran has refused to meet the American face-to-face.

EU officials have argued that a text circulated by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell in late July should be a basis for the US and Iran to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), which the US left in 2018 prompting Iran after 2019 to expand its nuclear program beyond JCPOA limits.

Iran’s chief negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani met Friday with Enrique Mora, the European Union official acting as a go-between with a US team led by special envoy Rob Malley, and with Wang Kun, China’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Iran has refused to meet the American face-to-face.

EU officials have argued that a text circulated by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell in late July should be a basis for the US and Iran to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), which the US left in 2018 prompting Iran after 2019 to expand its nuclear program beyond JCPOA limits.

But the Europeans have also highlighted remaining challenges, including intricate links between ‘technical’ and political issues, the question of which US sanctions introduced after 2018 contravene the deal, and Tehran’s demand for guarantees over access to world markets if the JCPOA is revived.

A senior European official told journalists late Thursday that among “four or five” issues still under dispute by the US and Iran was Tehran’s progress in uranium enrichment. Complicating technical issues in returning Iran’s nuclear program to JCPOA limits, Tehran has not only employed advanced centrifuges barred under the JCPOA but acquired knowledge and expertise in their use – including when enriching to 60 percent purity, far above the 3.67 percent JCPOA cap, and close to the 90 percent considered ‘weapons grade.’

‘Tattered allegations’

Another niggling issue is questions raised by the IAEA over Iran’s pre-2003 nuclear work. It has been widely reported Iranian negotiators have argued in Vienna any probe be shelved. Israeli journalist Barak Ravid tweeted he had been told by European officials that Iran was making “unrealistic demands” outside the scope of the JCPOA.

In an interview with Iran’s Arabic-language TV station al-Alam published Friday, Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said that agreement could be reached in Vienna if “the West…abandon their false excuses…tattered allegations and alleged documents…”

The IAEA in a 2015 report Final Assessment on Past and Present Outstanding Issues regarding Iran’s Nuclear Program found that weapons-linked work done by Iran before 2003 “did not advance beyond feasibility and scientific studies.” But in 2018 Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed on the basis of documents allegedly removed by Israel from Iran that the pre-2003 work had been more advanced that the IAEA realized.

The agency has lacked access to the documents. But after agency inspectors found uranium traces at sites linked to the pre-2003 work and IAEA director-general Rafael Mariano Grossi deemed Iran’s answers unsatisfactory, the agency’s board in June censured Iran with a resolution raised by France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Red lines and consultations

Speaking in Cambodia, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tehran was “absolutely legitimate” in demanding a restoration “without exceptions” of the JCPOA as signed in 2015 and then approved by the United Nations Security Council. Lavrov suggested the US was now trying to amend the agreement.

Iran International’s correspondent in Vienna, Ahmad Samadi reported that Lavrov’s words have had a negative impact on the atmosphere in Vienna.

Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Friday in Tehran that Iran sought “economic benefit from the deal, observing the country’s red lines, and preserving our indigenous nuclear capacity.”

While the current Vienna talks, which began Thursday, have been widely called “last ditch,” and while Borrell argued in a Financial Times piece published July 26 that “the space for additional significant compromises has been exhausted,” previous rounds in the Austrian capital – which began April 2021 and paused March 2022 – have ended with negotiators returning to their capitals for further consultations.

The European Union has played an active role in continuing efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) since year-long Vienna talks between Iran and six world powers paused in March. The new Vienna round appears to focus on a text produced in late July by EU foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell.

Mora Thursday met twice with Ali Bagheri Kani, the lead Iranian negotiator, according to a journalist at the Palais Coburg hotel and the official Iranian news agency IRNA, which also reported Mora met Rob Malley, the lead US negotiator.

IRNA quoted Bagheri Kani that Iran had presented “to the other sides our ideas, in terms of format and proposals, to make it possible to conclude the Vienna negotiations” and that he believed it possible “to bring the loose ends together in a short time if the other side is ready for a similar step.”

Thorny differences remain between Washington and Tehran. Speaking to al-Jazeera television Thursday, Mohammad Marandi, advisor-cum-spokesman for the Iranian negotiators, referring to the US leaving the JCPOA in 2018, said Washington had to give “the necessary assurances, so the Iranians are not fooled again.”

Marandi denied Iran had ever asked for guarantees over a future US presidency or that it had set as a precondition for JCPOA restoration the removal of Washington’s 2019 designation of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as a ‘foreign terrorist organization.’

Marandi said Iran needed “assurances that the United States does not [again] violate the deal without paying a heavy price…” Asked if Americans would agree to this, the advisor replied: “That’s what they are going to be negotiating about.”

Reuters quoted an anonymous Iranian official that among Iran “own suggestions” raised in Vienna, apparently in addition to Borrell’s proposals, was “lifting sanctions on the Guards gradually.”

Step by step?

There has been speculation as to whether Borrell’s proposals might include a step-by-step approach to reviving the JCPOA, with sanctions lifted in stages as Iran stepped down its nuclear program, which has expanded since 2019 including enriching uranium to 60 percent and using advanced centrifuges barred under the deal.

Iran’s atomic chief Mohammad Eslami Thursday reiterated Tehran’s demand that the International Atomic Energy (IAEA) should accept Iran’s explanations over nuclear work before 2003, a demand that many reports have suggested Tehran sees as a precondition for restoring the JCPOA.

Emphasizing domestic pressure on President Joe Biden over his approach to Iran, Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, repeated his view that the JCPOA was dead.

Return to JCPOA ‘a fantasy’

“A return to the 2015 deal is not only unrealistic and unproductive, it is a fantasy,” Menendez said. “Iran is drawing out negotiations with delaying tactics and brinkmanship…It is time for us to send a message that we will do whatever is necessary to defend the national interest of the United States and to ensure than Iran never achieves a nuclear weapon.”

Menendez was addressing, virtually, the ‘International Convention for a Free Iran,’ which is sponsored by the Mujahideen-e Khalq, the Iranian opposition group once allied to Saddam Hussein and which Tehran regards as a ‘terrorist’ organization. Menendez praised Maryam Rajavi, the MEK co-leader, and condemned Iran’s “push towards a nuclear weapon.”

A poll by Data For Progress published Wednesday found 42 percent of Americans likely to vote in November’s mid-term elections were “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” over Iran “developing the ability to produce a nuclear weapon.” Seventy-eight percent favored using “all our best diplomatic tools to put an end to Iran’s nuclear weapons program,” with 12 percent favoring “war with Iran…to slow down its nuclear weapons development.”

Speaking at NPT Review Conference in New York on Wednesday, Saudi Arabia’s new permanent representative to the UN Abdulaziz Al-Wasil warned of the repercussions of "Iran's nuclear practices" and Israel's non-accession to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

"Iran's lack of transparency with the IAEA violates the UN Charter," he said, adding that "transparency is necessary for the peaceful use of nuclear energy". "The danger of nuclear weapons spread threatens the Middle East and the world."

Noting that the Islamic Republic’s nuclear activities constitute a threat to the non-proliferation regime and to international peace and security, he expressed his country’s “deep concerns” over Iran’s nuclear program.

Citing the recent International Atomic Energy Report which cast doubt on the supposed peaceful nature of Tehran’s plans, he added, “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia supports all international efforts to prevent Iran from possessing nuclear weapons.”

In a ministerial statement released for the Tenth NPT Review Conference on Monday, August 1, the United States, France, and the United Kingdom also reiterated their position that the Islamic Republic should never achieve the capability to build nuclear weapons, saying that said the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has reduced the risk of a devastating nuclear war, and further reduction of that risk must be a priority for all NPT states parties.

Late in July, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein announced that Saudi Arabia and Iran have agreed to hold the first public meeting at the level of foreign ministers in Baghdad following rounds of closed reconciliation meetings.

The official Iranian news agency IRNA was moved to cite “an informed source close to Iran’s negotiating team” denying a Wall Street Journal report that Tehran had dropped its demand that the United States remove Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) from its list of ‘foreign terrorist organizations.’

The designation – made by President Donald Trump in 2019 – has been widely reported as a stumbling block in the talks, which began in April last year, but it is caught up in wider issues of Iran’s access to world trade as stipulated by the 2015 agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).

The Wall Street Journal’s formulation that Iran is “still calling for stronger guarantees that Washington won’t abandon the pact again or reimpose sanctions on Tehran” suggests Iran might swallow the FTO designation in return for other US concessions.

IRNA’s source said the onus lay with the US to “take advantage of the opportunity JCPOA participants have offered.” The US left the JCPOA in 2018 and will part in the Vienna talks indirectly, with Iran refusing to meet face-to-face.

Sword of Damocles

There have been wide reports that Iran is insisting on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) dropping enquiries into uranium traces found in sites used before 2003 and undisclosed to the agency as nuclear-related.

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Mohammad Marandi, advisor-cum-spokesman to Iranian negotiators, tweeted Thursday that the IAEA could “no longer be used as the sword of Damocles.” Iran and the IAEA are at odds over explanations Iran has given over the pre-2003 work, with the agency’s dissatisfaction prompting France, Germany, the UK, and the US to successfully move a resolution at the agency’s governing board in June censuring Iran.

In Tehran, Mohammad Eslami, Iran’s nuclear chief, told IRNA that Iran had no reason to respect JCPOA nuclear limits, given the deal was “quasi-obsolete,” and that it expected an end to “false claims,” a reference to the pre-2003 work.

In his tweet Marandi highlighted Iran’s demand for guarantees that the US and Europeans respect Iran’s access to world markets as required under the JCPOA, suggesting they could not hope to both restore the 2015 deal and “keep a wrecking ball at hand…able to expand the sanctions regime at will.”

Which sanctions are ‘nuclear related,’ and which are not, has been a central theme of talks, both in Vienna, where the process paused in March, and in a bilateral US-Iran round in Qatar June mediated by the European Union.

Asl and Bagheri Kani active

Mohsen Naziri Asl, Iran’s recently appointed ambassador to the IAEA, emerged Thursday in Vienna as a leading participant, while Iran’s chief negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani met Enrique Mora, the EU chair of the talks, and the Russian IAEA ambassador Mikhail Ulyanov, who in past rounds of negotiations has been an enthusiastic tweeter.

Previous Vienna talks followed a format where remaining JCPOA signatories – China, France, Germany, Iran, Russia, and the United Kingdom – met formally under JCPOA auspices, with the US participating indirectly. There were also constant bilateral meetings of various parties - other than between Iran and US, as Iran refuses to meet US diplomats.

The resumption of talks in Vienna, surprising observers after a five-month gap, comes after EU foreign policy chief Josep Borell circulated in late July a written text outlining a possible path to agreement.

Washington confirmed Wednesday that Rob Malley, its chief negotiator and special Iran envoy, would be in Vienna. Malley tweeted that while he welcomed “a good faith attempt to reach a deal,” US “expectations are in check.”