US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Friday that Iran's response to reviving the agreement on its nuclear program is a step "backward,” asserting that Washington will not agree to a deal that doesn’t meet its bottom-line requirements.
European negotiators appeared to be progressing toward reviving the 2015 nuclear agreement after EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell put forward the text of the final proposal.
However, the level of optimism declined, and Iran requested amendments to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) draft, which the US rejected.
"In the past weeks, we closed some gaps. Iran had moved away from some extraneous demands, demands unrelated to the JCPOA itself," the secretary told reporters in Brussels.
"However, the latest response takes us backward, and we are not about to agree to a deal that doesn't meet our bottom-line requirements."
Blinken held online meetings with his British, French, and German counterparts, who are still party to the agreement.
National security spokesman John Kirby told reporters Thursday night that President Joe Biden wants to ensure that the US has “other available options" to ensure that Iran does not achieve nuclear weapons capability if efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal fail.
Kirby reiterated that Washington would remain active in pushing for the reimplementation of the agreement, but its patience was "not eternal.”
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a telephone conversation with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi that the US must “stay away from the ambiguous language in this regard so that a deal will be finalized in the shortest possible time,” according to the Iranian Foreign Ministry statement.
“Iran is always committed to reaching the agreement, but will not accept the US attempt to achieve its own goals through bullying,” Chinese media quoted Abdollahian saying.
Wang said that China would continue to support Iran in safeguarding its legitimate rights and interests, expressing his belief that Iran has the wisdom to properly cope with the changes, firmly protect its fair and lawful rights and interests, and continue to occupy the international moral high ground.
Furthermore, the adviser to the Iranian nuclear negotiating team, Mohammad Marandi, tweeted that "the text [of the agreement] is almost ready," accusing the US of seeking to “buy time."
“The problem has always been the US. Obama violated the deal, Trump tore up the deal & Biden continued with Trump's policies,” he said.
- Recommendations
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) sounded the alarm Wednesday over an increase in Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium by 60 percent, warning that the level is a technical step away from weapons-grade levels.
The latest IAEA report said the agency “is not in a position to assure that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful.”
In addition, IAEA officials said they are “increasingly concerned” that Iran has not engaged in the agency’s probe into man-made uranium particles found at three undeclared sites in the country, which has become a key sticking point in the talks for a renewed deal.
IAEA’s Board of Governors is scheduled to hold its quarterly meeting, attended by 35 members, in Vienna the following Monday.
Meanwhile, experts from the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security recommended continuing the IAEA’s investigation of Iran’s violations of nuclear safeguards under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The Institute also recommended the IAEA Board of Governors pass a resolution condemning Iran’s non-cooperation and then refer the issue to the UN Security Council.
Experts urged The United States and Europe should refuse Iran’s demands to end the ongoing IAEA investigation as a condition for a revived nuclear deal under the JCPOA framework.
“The West should instead pressure Iran to cooperate with the IAEA by strengthening sanctions, including enacting the so-called snapback of UN sanctions, allowed in case of Iranian non-compliance with the JCPOA.”
At the same time, Iranian lawmaker Jalil Rahimi Jahanabadi explained his country's insistence on linking outstanding issues with the IAEA and the nuclear agreement negotiations, saying that resolving these issues would guarantee lifting anti-Iran sanctions.
Jahanabadi told the official IRNA news agency that the West claims the nuclear issues are solely related to the IAEA and Iran, and the problems between the Western powers and Tehran are only associated with those two, but it is incorrect.
He said that Vienna talks are for finding a solution for the nuclear issue, adding that the West may resort to the IAEA Boards of Governors or the UN Security Council to open a new file to start the negotiations from scratch.
- Europe’s Winter and the Chinese model
Jahanabadi reiterated the US wants to conclude the nuclear talks to be able to focus on the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
The lawmaker believes that approaching the cold season and experiencing the West-Russia severance of ties, Washington does not have any other alternative than reaching a deal with Iran over its nuclear program to focus on the Ukraine war.
He noted that the US seeks to show the positive effects of the revival of the nuclear deal to public opinion because the prolongation of the current energy crisis can have a destructive impact on the upcoming congressional elections.
Jahanabadi believes it is natural that Tehran wants to get assurances in the current round of negotiations for lifting sanctions and reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, especially after experiencing the US’s withdrawal from the agreement in 2018 and Europeans’ inaction to abide by their commitments under the accord.
The lawmaker indicated that a part of the assurances could be securing the continuation of the presence of companies that will come to Iran to invest, especially in the US, which should avoid putting pressure on the companies to pull out their investments.
Tehran will abide by its commitments under the JCPOA, but the West might resort to making up stories to dissuade foreign companies from investing in Iran, according to Jahanabadi.
Nuclear negotiations began in April 2021 and lasted six rounds before stopping in June due to the Iranian presidential elections.
It took Iran six more months to return to the negotiating table with a new group of negotiators representing the government of hardliner Ebrahim Raisi.
Negotiations stumbled in March due to obstacles, including Iran's request to remove the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) from the US foreign terrorist organization list.
Iran wants US guarantees to lift sanctions, end the IAEA investigation, and ensure that no US president will withdraw from the nuclear agreement in the future.
Tehran also wants to assert that the sanctions will not target companies investing in Iran.
