(Vienna) The Europeans expressed their “disappointment and concern” on Friday a few days after the resumption in Vienna of negotiations on Iranian nuclear power, according to senior diplomats from France, Germany and the United Kingdom (E3).
The delegations return this weekend to their respective capitals and the talks will resume in the middle of next week “to see if these differences can be overcome or not”, they add.
“Tehran is going back on almost all of the compromises that had been difficult to find” during the first round of negotiations between April and June, they declared.
But “it is not clear how such a gap can be closed within a realistic timeframe on the basis of the Iranian project.”
Despite these harsh comments, European diplomats say they are “fully engaged in the search for a diplomatic solution”. “Time is running out,” they insist.
Concluded in 2015 between the Islamic Republic and six great powers (United States, Russia, China, France, Germany, United Kingdom), the Iran nuclear agreement broke up following the unilateral withdrawal of the United States in 2018 and the reinstatement of sanctions.
In response, Tehran has freed itself from most of its commitments.
The Vienna negotiations aim to bring Washington back into the fold, which participates in the discussions indirectly.
The various parties parted ways in June with the hope of an imminent conclusion, but the coming to power in Iran of ultra-conservative President Ebrahim Raïssi was a game-changer.
This pact, known by its English acronym JCPOA, offered Tehran the lifting of part of the sanctions stifling its economy in exchange for a drastic reduction in its nuclear program, placed under strict UN control.