EU mediators submit ‘final text’ in effort to revive Iran nuclear deal

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Financial Times

8/8/2022

EU officials mediating talks between the US and Iran aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear accord have put forward the “final text” of an agreement they hope will convince Tehran to sign. The latest round of negotiations, which began in Vienna last week, bore the hallmarks of a last-ditch attempt to secure an agreement between the Islamic republic and the Biden administration after 15 months of EU-mediated indirect talks. Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said on Monday: “What can be negotiated has been negotiated, and it’s now in a final text.” “However, behind every technical issue and every paragraph lies a political decision that needs to be taken in the capitals,” Borrell wrote on Twitter. “If these answers are positive, then we can sign this deal.” Diplomats and analysts have been saying for weeks that with many of the details of an agreement reached, it is up to Tehran and Washington to make the political decisions about whether they want to sign. Both capitals blame each other for the deadlock, and entered the talks playing down any expectations of a breakthrough. The Iranian delegation was to return to Tehran for consultations, the country’s state media said. Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said in a telephone conversation with Borrell on Monday evening that “any final agreement should meet the rights and interests of the Iranian nation and guarantee sustainable and effective removal of sanctions”. Another Iranian foreign ministry official told local news agencies that “relative progress” was made at the talks, but they added that the Islamic Republic had “serious concerns” about the US failing to meet its commitments. Under the agreement, reached in 2015, Iran agreed to strict limits on its nuclear activity in exchange for the US lifting many sanctions. The nuclear crisis was triggered when then-US president Donald Trump unilaterally abandoned the accord in 2018 and imposed waves of crippling sanctions on Iran. Tehran responded by ramping up its nuclear activity and it is now enriching uranium close to weapons grade. President Joe Biden said the US would rejoin the deal if Iran agreed to return to compliance, but Tehran has insisted it first needs guarantees from Washington that no future administration will be able to unilaterally withdraw from the deal. Recommended Josep Borrell Josep Borrell: Now is the time to save the Iran nuclear deal Experts said it was virtually impossible for the US to provide such assurances. Tehran has also demanded that Washington lift a terrorist designation on Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, something Biden has publicly rejected. The talks have been further complicated by Iran’s insistence that the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN watchdog, drop a longstanding probe into past nuclear activity at three undeclared sites. Borrell said negotiators used the Vienna talks to “fine tune and address” a handful of issues in a text that he put forward last month. Western diplomats said the parties were close to finalising a deal at the last talks in Vienna five months ago. But Washington and Tehran have been unable to resolve outstanding issues as concerns have mounted that the process has been edging towards collapse. Analysts said neither side wanted to be blamed for the talks’ failure, while both have to consider the reactions of their domestic constituencies. But Iran’s expanded nuclear activity means the uneasy limbo is ultimately unsustainable. “It’s definitely one step forward, one step backwards,” said Ali Vaez, Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group think-tank. “On the one hand, they’ve made progress on the IRGC [Revolutionary Guards]-related sanctions and also on the question of guarantees. But they were absolutely unable to resolve disagreements over the safeguards probe into the three undeclared locations in Iran. “That’s now the obstacle that prevents finalising the agreement, so in many ways we are back to March when we had a single obstacle to a deal.”

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Financial Times