World powers return to the table with Iran
World powers resumed the latest round of talks to reach a final agreement between Iran and the United States over reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, Russia’s envoy to the United Nations in Vienna said.
Mikhail Ulyanov said the fifth round of talks had resumed in the Austrian capital and there was an understanding among the countries involved that “the current round should be final”, according to his tweet.
In 2018, then-president Donald Trump pulled the US unilaterally out of the agreement saying that it was not broad enough and needed to be renegotiated. As part of a maximum pressure campaign, he reimposed sanctions and added additional ones on Iran in an effort to bring Tehran back to the table.
Iran's economy was crippled by the move but it has refused new talks, instead retaliating by slowly and steadily breaking the restrictions of the JCPOA in an effort to pressure the other parties involved, thus far unsuccessfully, to come up with incentives to offset the American sanctions.
Biden, who was vice president when the original deal was negotiated, has said he wants the US to rejoin but that Iran has to return to complete compliance. Iran has insisted that all American sanctions imposed under Trump be dropped, including measures that were taken in response to non-nuclear issues. Iran's violations include a significant increase in the purity and quantity of uranium it has been enriching.