Nuclear Talks Face New Pause, Europe And US Say Time Running Out
The latest round of the Iran nuclear talks in Vienna broke Friday for at least ten days in a somber mood without evident signs of progress.
The latest round of the Iran nuclear talks in Vienna broke Friday for at least ten days in a somber mood without evident signs of progress.
Enrique Mora, the senior European Union official chairing formal meetings, told reporters he hoped talks would resume by the end of the year. "We don't have months, we rather have weeks to have an agreement,” he said.
Mora said that written proposals submitted this month by Iran had been incorporated into negotiations, which in seven rounds of talks since April have discussed reviving Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).
“We are in a situation both in sanctions and nuclear, where difficult political decisions have to be taken,” Mora said. “It's going to be politically painful sometimes. And we don't have much time. So ... my plea, my call is for delegations to establish clear priorities, to come with an open and realistic situation of what can be achieved, and go for it."
The three JCPOA western European JCPOA signatories – France, Germany and the United Kingdom – issued a downbeat statement. "We hope that Iran is in a position to resume the talks quickly, and to engage constructively so that talks can move at a faster pace,” it read. “We are rapidly reaching the end of the road for this negotiation.”
While United States ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions, imposed on Iran when the US left the JCPOA in 2018, remain at the crux of the Vienna talks, Tehran has increasingly directed criticism at the ‘E3,’ who they feel have moved closer to the US in recent months.
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Friday that the talks in Vienna were “not going well,” and that Washington had communicated its “alarm” through the Europeans over Iran’s expanding nuclear program.
The official Iranian news agency IRNA suggested Friday that France in particular was playing a negative role, and that the E3 had coordinated with Israel, which was recently reported to have allocated $1.5 billion for a military attack on Iran and has been lobbying in Washington for a tougher approach.
Missing data
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Friday that data from an agency camera at Iran’s Karaj manufacturing site was missing. The camera was damaged in a drone attack in June widely blamed on Israel, and was one of several removed by Iran from the site. While Iran is not required to allow IAEA access under its safeguards agreement, the agency regards monitoring Karaj, which makes equipment for uranium enrichment, as important to assessing Iran’s program.
Iran and the IAEA agreed Wednesday that the agency would reinstall cameras as the site, although the IAEA would not receive the footage until agreement is reached in Vienna and the greater access required by the JCPOA restored.
The central challenge in the Vienna talks since they began in April is agreeing how Iran’s nuclear program, expanded and improved since 2019, can be returned to JCPOA limits, and exactly which US sanctions contravene the JCPOA and should be lifted as Washington returns to the deal.
The formal talks in Vienna involve the remaining JCPOA signatories – China, France, Germany, Iran, Russia and the United Kingdom – with the US taking part indirectly. China's chief negotiator, Wan Qun, said Friday he hoped talks would resume before the end of the year.
Iran has not produced the footage, Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Friday.
The issue was not addressed by an agreement between Iran and the IAEA on Wednesday that allowed the IAEA re-install cameras at the Karaj workshop that Iran removed after the apparent attack, which Tehran blames on Israel.
Iran had since refused the IAEA access to replace cameras damaged in the incident, part of an ongoing hardline tact taken by Tehran at negotiations underway in Vienna over its tattered 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
The new agreement this week should end a months-long standoff over IAEA access there.
In response to a question by Iran International Grossi said that Iran's request to check new cameras before installation is not something new and other countries also routinely do that.
Grossi also indicated that there was no opposition from the United States to his organization's latest agreement with Iran.
Iran says one of four IAEA cameras at the Karaj facility producing uranium enrichment machines was destroyed in the June incident. Iran removed all four cameras and showed them to the IAEA, but the destroyed camera's data storage device was not included. The IAEA and Western powers have been asking Iran to explain, unsuccessfully so far.
"We have doubts about that and this is why we are asking, 'Where is it?’" Grossi told a news conference when asked if it was credible that the footage simply vanished.
"I am hopeful that they are going to come up with an answer because it's very strange that it disappears."
The agreement on Karaj avoided a diplomatic escalation that threatened to scupper wider talks on rescuing the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA).
Talks between Iran and world powers since April to bring both the United States and Iran back to compliance with JCPOA have so far failed to produce a result. The US withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and Iran responded by increasing uranium enrichment.
The cameras are aimed at verifying Iran is not secretly siphoning off the parts for uranium-enriching centrifuges that are made there, but the footage will remain under seal in Iran, so the IAEA cannot view it for now, as has been the case at various locations since February.
The IAEA has not been able to verify whether Karaj has resumed operations, but Grossi said "it would be a logical conclusion" that advanced centrifuges recently installed at Fordow, a site buried inside a mountain, came from there.
With reporting by Reuters and AP