START OF THE DEAL
Envoy casts discussions as ‘a first step’
U.S. and Iran to begin indirect nuclear-limit talks.
The United States and Iran said Friday they will begin indirect negotiations with intermediaries next week to try to get both countries back into compliance with an accord limiting Iran’s nuclear program, nearlythree years after President Donald Trump pulled theU.S. out of the deal.
Theannouncement marks one of the first bits of tangible progress in efforts to return both nations to terms of the 2015 accord, which bound Iran to restrictions in return for relief from U.S. and internationalsanctions.
President Joe Biden came into office saying that returning to the accord — and getting Iran’s nuclear program back under international restrictions — was a priority. But the U.S. has disagreed with Iran’s demands that sanctions be lifted first, and that deadlock has threatened to become an early foreign policy setback for the new president.
Administration officials played down expectations for next week’s talks. State Department spokesperson Ned Price called the resumption of negotiations, scheduled for Tuesday in Vienna, “a healthy step forward.” But Mr. Price added, “These remain early days, and we don’t anticipate an immediate breakthrough as there will be difficult discussions ahead.”
“This is a first step,” Biden Iran envoy Rob Malley tweeted. He said diplomats were now “on the right path.”
Mr. Trump pulled the U.S. out of the accord in 2018, accusing Iran of continuous cheating and opting for what he called a maximum-pressure campaign of stepped-up U.S. sanctions and other tough actions. Iran responded by intensifying its enrichment of uranium and building of centrifuges in plain violation of the accord while maintaining its insistence that its nuclear development was for civilian and notmilitary purposes.
Israel, Saudi Arabia and other U.S. allies and strategic partners are on perpetual alert against the possibility of their top rival, Iran, attaining nuclear arms — keeping tensions up in a region where the U.S. military is present and has often intervened.
Iran’s enrichment was seen as upping the pressure for a U.S. return to the nuclear deal and a lifting of Mr. Trump’s sanctions, which included banking measures aimed at cutting off the country from the international financial system. Other Trump administration measures sanctioned Iran’s oil sales and blacklisted top government officials.
Agreement on the start of indirect talks came after the European Union helped broker a virtual meeting of officials from Britain, China, France, Germany,
Russia and Iran, all of which have remained in the accord, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
Mr. Price said next week’s talks will be structured around working groups that the EU 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,” Mr. Price said.
The U.S., like Iran, said it did not anticipate direct talks between the two nations now, though Mr. Price said the U.S. remains open to that idea.
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif tweeted that the aim of the Vienna session would be to “rapidly finalize sanction-lifting & nuclear measures for choreographed removal of all sanctions, followed by Iran ceasing remedial measures.”