The Manila Times

Talks on Iran nuclear pact to restart in Vienna

VIENNA: Negotiators were due to kick off a fresh round of talks on Iran’s nuclear program in Vienna on Thursday that seeks to salvage the agreement on Tehran’s atomic ambitions.

Officials from world powers and the Islamic republic were set to meet in the Austrian capital for the first time since March, when negotiations, which began in 2021 to reintegrate the United States into the agreement, stalled.

In late June, Qatar hosted indirect talks between Tehran and Washington in the hope of getting the process back on track, but those talks failed to make a breakthrough.

In a last-ditch effort, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell submitted a compromise proposal last month and called on the parties to accept it to avoid a “dangerous nuclear crisis.”

He said the draft text included “hard-won compromises by all sides” and “addresses, in precise detail, the sanctions lifting, as well as the nuclear steps needed to restore” the 2015 pact.

The United Kingdom, China, France, Germany, Iran, Russia and the US signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — the agreement’s formal name — in July 2015. Delegations from all sides will participate in Thursday’s talks, but officials from Washington and Tehran are not expected to meet face to face.

The deal aims to guarantee the civilian nature of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for a gradual lifting of sanctions.

But following the US’ unilateral withdrawal in 2018 under thenpresident Donald Trump and the reimposition of American sanctions, Tehran has backtracked on its obligations.

Iran subsequently exceeded the JCPOA’s uranium enrichment rate of 3.67 percent, rising to 20 percent in early 2021.

It then crossed an unprecedented 60-percent threshold, getting closer to the 90 percent needed to make a bomb.

Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, warned on Tuesday that Iran’s program was “moving ahead very, very fast” and “growing in ambition and capacity.”

Ahead of Thursday’s talks, officials expressed cautious optimism while cautioning that the parties remained far apart on key issues.

The head of the US delegation, Rob Malley, and his Iranian counterpart, Ali Bagheri, said on Twitter ahead of the talks that they were coming in good faith but put the onus on each other.

Analysts, meanwhile, said reviving the JCPOA remained the best option. “The last thing the United States needs is a nuclear crisis with Iran that could easily escalate to a broader regional conflict,” Suzanne DiMaggio, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said in a statement.

Ellie Geranmayeh, an analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that “at the end of the day, Tehran and Washington know the alternatives to a JCPOA collapse are terrible.”

“This is unlikely to be a meeting that resolves the outstanding issues,” but “it could create the breakthrough necessary to push the talks towards a finishing line rather than a collapse,” she added.

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2022-08-05T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-08-05T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://manilatimes.pressreader.com/article/281913071874817

The Manila Times