Iran nuclear talks resume under shadow of more deal-breaking from Tehran
Talks on Iran’s nuclear programme aimed at salvaging a 2015 nuclear deal resumed yesterday, a day after Tehran said it began producing uranium at 60 per cent purity.
Iran said it would sharply increase its enrichment of uranium earlier last week, after an attack on its Natanz nuclear site that it blamed on Israel.
On Friday, US President Joe Biden said Iran’s move to raise uranium enrichment was not helpful.
“We are, though, nonetheless pleased that Iran has continued to agree to engage in indirect discussion with us and with our partners on how we move forward and what is needed to allow us to move back into the nuclear deal,” Mr Biden said.
“It’s premature to make a judgment on what the outcome will be but we’re still talking.”
The incidents cast a shadow over talks in Vienna aimed at rescuing the nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers that former US president Donald Trump abandoned almost three years ago.
The EU said yesterday’s talks would involve its officials and representatives from Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and Iran.
The talks are aimed at determining which sanctions the US should lift and the measures Iran has to comply with the accord.
The Russian ambassador to Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, said there had been “slow but steady progress in the negotiations on restoration of the nuclear deal”.
EU diplomat Enrique Mora was cautiously optimistic, saying that talks had made progress despite difficult circumstances. China’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Wang Qun, said the coming days would involve more detailed talks.
Speaking after yesterday’s talks Iran’s chief negotiator, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, said that “a new understanding appears to be emerging”, even though serious disagreements remained. The negotiations had reached a stage where work on a common text, “at least in areas where there are common views”, could begin, he told Iranian state media.
Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, confirmed Tehran was now producing uranium enriched to 60 per cent purity, taking the country closer to the 90 per cent level required for a nuclear weapon.
Iran has repeatedly insisted it is not seeking an atom bomb, but at its rate of production, it could take the country 322 days to produce the amount of enriched uranium needed to make one bomb, based on IAEA criteria. But this would require Iran to have enough 20 per cent enriched uranium, which it does not have, according to the latest IAEA data.
Tehran has gradually gone back on 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, gave Iran relief from sanctions in return for curbs on its nuclear programme.
Under the nuclear accord, Iran committed itself to keeping enrichment to 3.67 per cent, though it had stepped this up to 20 per cent in January. Negotiations aimed at ensuring the return of the US to the deal and the lifting of sanctions resumed earlier this month in Vienna.
Iran said yesterday that a man suspected to be involved in the Natanz sabotage incident had been identified as a 43-year-old Iranian called Reza Karimi.
He left the country before sabotaging the Natanz plant’s power grid, causing a power cut and damaging a number of centrifuges, government-linked media said.
Iran’s allegation could not be immediately verified.
Iran said it would increase its enrichment of uranium after an attack on its Natanz plant that it blamed on Israel