The European Union (EU) and Iran announced on Saturday a resumption “in the coming days” of talks on the nuclear file, suspended for more than three months, on the occasion of a surprise visit to Tehran by the European leader. Joseph Borrell.
Mr. Borrell, the head of EU diplomacy, and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian made the announcements at a joint press conference in Tehran after a two-hour tete-a-tete.
Talks launched in Vienna in April 2021 between Iran and the major powers (Russia, US, China, France, UK and Germany) have stalled since March, with US and Iranian adversaries accusing each other of block them.
They aim to reintegrate the United States into the 2015 pact providing for limitations on the Iranian nuclear program, denounced in 2018 by former US President Donald Trump, and to bring Iran back to full compliance with its commitments dictated by this pact, called JCPOA.
Concluded by Iran and the six powers, the JCPOA aims to guarantee the civilian nature of the nuclear program of Iran, accused of seeking to acquire atomic weapons despite its denials, in exchange for a gradual lifting of sanctions international organizations suffocating the Iranian economy. However, the Trump administration had reinstated American sanctions, provoking the ire of Iran.
“My visit has the main objective of breaking the current dynamic, that is to say the dynamic of escalation” and breaking the deadlock, said Mr. Borrell, accompanied during his one-day visit to Tehran of the EU coordinator responsible for overseeing the Vienna Dialogue, Enrique Mora.
“We will resume discussions on the JCPOA in the coming days,” he said. And “when I say in the next few days I mean quickly and immediately”.
Economic benefits
For Mr. Borrell, one of the major obstacles blocking progress in the negotiations is the enmity between Iran and the United States, two countries which have not maintained diplomatic relations since 1980.
“There are decisions that need to be made in Tehran and in Washington, but we agreed today that this visit will be followed by the resumption of negotiations also between Iran and the United States facilitated by my team to try to resolve outstanding issues,” he said.
In Vienna, the United States and Iran hold indirect talks, via the EU.
Mr. Borrell underlined in front of his Iranian interlocutor the economic advantages that Iran could derive from a revival of the 2015 agreement, while this country is suffering from sanctions.
“Our bilateral relations have enormous potential, but without a functioning JCPOA, we cannot fully develop them,” he said in a tweet.
He also raised the issue of the “baffling detention of EU citizens in Iran”, referring to several Westerners detained in Iran, on espionage or other charges.
For his part, Mr. Amir-Abdollahian stressed that his country was “ready to resume talks in the coming days”.
“What is important for the Islamic Republic of Iran is the full economic benefit that Iran must derive from the agreement reached in 2015,” he added, referring above all to the lifting of sanctions. .
“We will try to resolve the issues and differences through the talks which will resume soon,” he continued.
Neither Mr. Borrell nor the Iranian minister has given a specific date for the resumption of talks.
“Reversible”
The nuclear issue has long plagued relations between Iran and the international community.
The US administration of Joe Biden has said it wants to return to the 2015 agreement, provided that Tehran renews its commitments, while Iran previously demands the lifting of sanctions.
At the beginning of June, after the United States and the Europeans passed a resolution at the IAEA denouncing Tehran’s lack of cooperation, Iran disconnected surveillance cameras from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA ) at its nuclear sites.
But he then stressed that these measures were “reversible” in the event of an agreement in Vienna.
After the cameras were disabled, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi warned that if the blockage continued, “in three or four weeks” the IAEA would no longer be able to monitor Iran’s nuclear program.
According to experts, the talks in Vienna are also stumbling over the American refusal to give in to a key demand from Tehran: the removal of the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s ideological army, from the American list of “terrorist organizations”.