Iranian President Hassan Rouhani discusses Iran’s new nuclear achievements during Iran’s National Day of Nuclear Energy in Tehran, Iran, April 10, 2021.
Office of the Iranian Presidency | WANA | via Reuters
Talks over the Iranian nuclear deal in Vienna were more positive on Monday, officials said, as Tehran and Washington continue indirect negotiations in hopes of reviving the 2015 deal that will lift economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for curbing its nuclear. program.
“We are on the right track and some progress has been made, but this does not mean that the talks in Vienna have reached the final stage,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told a news conference in Tehran.
Iran encourages uranium enrichment
US officials say there has been no breakthrough, but have described the indirect discussions as “thorough” and “thoughtful.” According to reports, diplomats could even draft an interim deal that would give all sides more time to resolve some of the more complicated technical issues.
Negotiations are starting to get underway even as Iran announces further violations of the deal – most notably last week’s pledge to enrich uranium to 60% purity, which would bring the fissile material closer to the level needed for a bomb. The uranium enrichment must be 90% to make a bomb – the limit under the 2015 deal was 3.67%.
The move is “violations that Iran is trying to leverage the negotiations in Vienna,” Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told CNBC. While this move is meant to strengthen Tehran’s hand, it could also backfire, analysts warn.
Iran launched advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges on April 10 to mark its national “Nuclear Day,” while President Hassan Rouhani reiterated the country’s commitment to nuclear non-proliferation. The conflicting reports on state television were followed just a day later by an explosion at Iran’s Natanz enrichment facility – which Tehran has called an “act of nuclear terrorism” and blamed Israel. Israel publicly refused to affirm or deny any responsibility.
“I think this will definitely drag on as you will probably see the cyber war between these two countries heating up in the coming months and we will probably see more talk about talk in the coming months,” Ben Taleblu said. .
“And in the meantime, with more cyber attacks and more talk, you can almost guarantee that sites like Natanz will do everything they can to keep producing.”
Still, all sides continue to push for a US return to the deal the former Trump administration abandoned in 2018, after which it imposed crippling sanctions on Iran’s economy. The US also wants Iran to return to full compliance before lifting the sanctions, something that gets trickier with every new enrichment attempt by Tehran.
During the talks, Iranian officials have essentially taken a tough approach – they want Washington to lift all sanctions before it is back in compliance. The Biden team has expressed its willingness to lift any sanctions that are not in line with the agreement, but it has not yet specified exactly what that means.
Officials from all sides have described a mutual desire to move towards simultaneous and sequential steps to get this deal on the line. But there is still considerably more work to be done on this point.
At the same time, the International Atomic Energy Agency has started separate talks with Iran about traces of uranium the agency found in undeclared locations in the country. The agency wants to understand where the traces are coming from and ensure that Iran does not divert the material to make a nuclear weapon, which would be a major blow to the apparent progress of talks so far. Iran insists that is not the case.
Top EU diplomat Josep Borrell said on Monday: the other side. side, nuclear implementation issues. “
“If the US rejoins the JCPOA and returns to full implementation of the deal, the world would be much safer,” said Borrell.