US, Iran hope to salvage N-deal in Vienna

US State Department calls next week’s talks with Iranians a ‘healthy step forward’

BRUSSELS/TEHRAN: The United States and Iran said on Friday they would start indirect talks with other major world powers next week to try to get both countries back into an accord limiting Iran’s nuclear programme, nearly three years after former president Donald Trump pulled the US out of the deal.

US state department spokesperson Ned Price called the resumption of negotiations, scheduled for Tuesday in Vienna, “a healthy step forward”.

But Price added, “These remain early days, and we don’t anticipate an immediate breakthrough as there will be difficult discussions ahead.”

Trump pulled the United States out of the Iran Nuclear Deal in 2018, and US President

Joe Biden has said rejoining the agreement is a priority for his administration.

The Biden administration and Iran have differed on any conditions for that to happen, including the timing of the lifting of US sanctions against Iran, and the stalemate on those points had threatened to pose a major foreign policy setback for the new Biden administration.

Agreement on the start of multi-party talks - being held to get Iran and the United States over their differences on conditions for returning to the 2015 nuclear deal - came after talks on Thursday brokered by other governments that have remained in the accord, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Price said next week’s talks will be structured around working groups that the European Union was forming with the remaining participants in the accord, including Iran.

“The primary issues that will be discussed are the nuclear steps that Iran would need to take in order to return to compliance with the terms of the JCPOA, and the sanctions relief steps that the United States would need to take in order to return to compliance as well,” Price said. The US, like Iran, said that it did not anticipate direct talks between America and Iran now. Price said Washington, DC remains open to that idea, however.

Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif immediately stressed that no meeting was planned between officials from Iran and the US.

In a tweet, Zarif said the aim of the Vienna session would be to “rapidly finalise sanction-lifting & nuclear measures for choreographed removal of all sanctions, followed by Iran ceasing remedial measures”.

Iranian state television quoted Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s nuclear negotiator, as saying during Friday’s discussions that any “return by the US to the nuclear deal does not require any negotiation and the path is quite clear”.

“The US can return to the deal and stop breaching the law in the same way it withdrew from the deal and imposed illegal sanctions on Iran,” Araghchi was quoted as saying.

Russia’s ambassador to international organisations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, said that “the impression is that we are on the right track, but the way ahead will not be easy and will require intensive efforts”.

Iran has been slowly but steadily violating the restrictions of the 2015 deal.

Tehran’s moves have been calculated to put pressure on the other nations in the deal - Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain - to do more to offset crippling sanctions reimposed under Trump.