(Paris) The Russian demands linked to the war in Ukraine continue to weigh on the negotiations for the Iranian nuclear: Paris declared itself Tuesday “concerned” by the “risks” caused by these “additional delays”, while Washington promised not to yield anything to Moscow.
Posted at 6:22 p.m.
“We are very close to an agreement,” the French foreign ministry said in a statement.
But “we are concerned about the risks that additional delays pose to the possibility” of concluding it, he added, referring to the new Russian demands.
In coordination with Germany and the United Kingdom, which are participating in the negotiations, France called on “all the other parties to adopt a responsible approach and to take the decisions necessary for the conclusion of this agreement”.
The Vienna negotiations to save the agreement supposed to prevent Iran from acquiring the atomic bomb, moribund since the unilateral withdrawal of the United States in 2018, seemed on the verge of success.
As optimistic statements multiplied, Russia, hit by Western sanctions after its invasion of Ukraine, however asked for American guarantees that these retaliatory measures would not affect its cooperation with Iran.
Requests deemed “off topic” on Sunday by the head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken. “The sanctions adopted against Russia have nothing to do with the Iran nuclear deal,” he said.
“Raise the Bids”
Asked to say, Tuesday during a parliamentary hearing in Washington, if the United States had provided such written guarantees to Russia, the number three of the American State Department, Victoria Nuland, answered clearly: “no”.
“When it comes to Iran, we are not in negotiations with Russia,” she stressed.
According to her, “Russia is trying to up the ante and expand its demands” and “some” in Moscow “want to get additional benefits for their cooperation and participation” in the negotiations to salvage the 2015 deal.” But they’re not going to get there,” she said.
Victoria Nuland claimed that Russian commercial relations with Iran were “relatively limited”, and that Russian participation in this key agreement was mainly linked to Moscow’s “national security interests”.
She also said a compromise in Vienna was “almost done” and dismissed calls from critics of the 2015 deal to suspend negotiations because of the war in Ukraine. “The last thing we need, besides Putin’s bloody war, is a nuclear-armed Iran,” she said.
Concluded by Iran on one side, and the United States, China, France, the United Kingdom, Russia and Germany on the other, the 2015 agreement allowed the lifting of economic sanctions against Tehran, in exchange for strict limits on its nuclear programme.
But the United States withdrew from it in 2018 under President Donald Trump and reinstated the punitive measures that are suffocating the Iranian economy. In response, Tehran largely freed itself from restrictions on its nuclear activities, while denying that it wanted to acquire the bomb.
According to the Iranian press agency IRNA, the Iranian chief negotiator Ali Baghéri “will go to Vienna on Wednesday morning” to “continue the talks”.