U.S., signatories to Iran deal to meet in Vienna next week

BERLIN

The United States and other original signatories to the Iran nuclear deal will convene in Vienna next week in an effort to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement that President Biden has said he wants to see salvaged.

Representatives of Iran, France, Germany, Russia, Britain and China will convene Tuesday with two challenges on the table: how to roll back sanctions imposed by the Trump administration and bring Tehran’s nuclear program back into the limits set by the deal.

U.S. envoys will not be part of those discussions, but will be on hand for “separate contacts” with the group, according to a European Commission statement.

State Department spokesman Ned Price said “we do not anticipate” direct U.S.-Iran talks in Vienna, but “the United States remains open to them.”

He said the meeting will look at both the “nuclear steps that Iran would need to take” to regain compliance with the nuclear deal and “the sanctions relief steps that the United States would need to take in order to return to compliance as well.”

“We don’t anticipate an immediate breakthrough as there will be difficult discussions ahead,” he added. “But we believe this is a healthy step forward.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the “diplomatic road ahead may be long, as it was during the first negotiations.”“We are very cleareyed about the hurdles that remain,” Psaki said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also said there would be no direct meeting between Iran and the United States. “Unnecessary,” he tweeted as Iranian officials stood firm on Tehran’s demand that the Biden administration first ease sanctions on Iran as a precondition to dialogue.

The Trump administration withdrew from the nuclear deal in May 2018, reimposing sanctions on Iran as part of a “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran.

Unable to reap the economic benefits of the deal, Iran has argued that it should not be bound by the limits it put on its nuclear program, which includes uranium enrichment for reactors, and has gradually breached its commitments.

In recent months, Iran has increased the quantity and quality of uranium it is enriching and also informed the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency that it had begun working on equipment needed to produce uranium metal, which can be used to produce nuclear warheads. Iran’s leaders have long said the country does not seek nuclear arms.

Previous efforts to negotiate a U.S. return to the deal have been confounded by arguments over whether Tehran or Washington should take the first step.

Biden administration officials have indicated they are willing to meet with Iran to jointly agree on a full return to compliance, without renegotiating the original deal.

Iranian officials have questioned why such a meeting would be necessary since Tehran’s terms are clear. It wants the lifting of all U.S. sanctions and has little interest in discussing other matters.