‘Premature to know if talks will succeed’
Talks on Iran’s nuclear programme resumed on Saturday, a day after it said ‘producing uranium at 60% purity’
Washington, US - US President Joe Biden said on Friday it was too early to know whether indirect talks underway with Iran would succeed in reviving a nuclear accord.
Biden said the United States does ‘not think that it's at all helpful’ that Iran this week ramped up uranium enrichment, a move taken in response to sabotage on a nuclear facility believed to have been carried out by Israel.
“We are nonetheless pleased that Iran has continued to agree to engage in discussions,” Biden said at a joint news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga. “I think it’s premature to make a judgment as to what the outcome will be, but I think we're still talking,” he said.
Biden reiterated that he supported the 2015 agreement negotiated when he was vice president but would not make ‘major concessions’ to return to it. Former president Donald Trump trashed the agreement - under which Iran was promised sanctions relief in return for major curbs on its nuclear program - and instead imposed sweeping economic punishment including a unilateral ban on other nations buying its oil.
Talks in Vienna
Talks on Iran’s nuclear programme aimed at salvaging a
Abbas Araghchi, the political deputy at Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, arrives at the ‘Grand Hotel Wien’ for a closed door meeting with the diplomats of the European Union, China and Russia, in the Austrian capital of Vienna on Friday
2015 nuclear deal resumed on Saturday, a day after Tehran said it had started producing uranium
at 60 per cent purity.
The Islamic republic had declared it would sharply ramp up
its enrichment of uranium earlier this week, after an attack on its Natanz nuclear facility that it
blamed on arch-foe Israel.
The incidents cast a shadow over talks in Vienna aimed at rescuing the nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers that then US president Donald Trump abandoned almost three years ago.
The European Union said Saturday’s talks would involve EU officials and representatives from Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and Iran. The talks are aimed at determining which sanctions the United States should lift and the measures Iran
has to take to come into compliance with the accord.
The Russian Ambassador to Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, spoke of ‘slow but steady progress in the negotiations on restoration of the nuclear deal’ on Twitter.
Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, confirmed Iran was now producing uranium enriched to 60 per cent purity, taking the country closer to the 90 per cent level required for use in a nuclear weapon.
“The enrichment of uranium to 60 per cent is underway [in Natanz],” he said, quoted by
Tasnim news agency.
Iran has repeatedly insisted it is not seeking an atomic bomb, but at that rate of production, it could take the Islamic republic 322 days to produce the amount of 60 per cent enriched uranium needed to make one bomb, based on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) criteria.
But this would require Iran to have a sufficient amount of 20 per cent enriched uranium, which it does not have, according to the latest IAEA data.
Tehran has gradually rolled back its nuclear commitments since 2019, a year after Washington withdrew from the accord and began imposing sanctions.
The 2015 deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA), gave Iran relief from sanctions in return for curbs on its nuclear programme. Under the accord, Iran had committed to keep enrichment to 3.67 per cent.