Brussels (Brussels Morning) Representatives of Iran and the world’s major powers were set to meet on Monday in Vienna to resume high-stakes negotiations on reviving the Iranian nuclear deal, a process that has been held up for months as the new administration in Tehran settled in.
The original nuclear treaty, the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was signed in 2015 when US President Barack Obama was in office and moderate Hassan Rouhani served as Iranian president. The deal provided relief for Tehran from western sanctions in exchange for Iran agreeing to limit its nuclear programme to a level ensured to keep its purposes civilian.
The treaty unravelled as US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew Washington from the deal, and re-imposed sanctions against Tehran in 2018. Iran initially waited for the treaty’s other signatories – the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany and the EU – to attempt to persuade the US to return to the treaty and lift the sanctions. However, after a year of waiting, Tehran began engaging in progressively more serious breaches of the treaty’s stipulations limiting its nuclear programme.
With President Joe Biden now in the White House, the two sides agreed to resume talks on reviving the treaty, but soon found themselves at an impasse – Washington insisted Tehran must first return its nuclear programme to compliance with the original treaty, while Iran insisted the US must first lift its sanctions.
Six rounds of indirect talks were held in Vienna between April and June this year, but were then paused as ultra-conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi assumed power in Iran, and his new administration was gearing up for work. With the backing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Raisi presented a much more hardline approach to negotiations, which many Western diplomats have taken as a sign that an eventual deal may well be out of reach.
“Our demands are clear. Other parties and especially Americans should decide whether they want this deal to be revived or not. They abandoned the pact, so they should return to it and lift all sanctions,” an Iranian official told Reuters on Monday ahead of the talks.
While some analysts believe Iran is attempting to build a better negotiating position by presenting an uncompromising posture, others warn that, should a deal not be reached soon, Israel and the US will likely take other measures to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons.