This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission.
Washington has again warned Iran it is running out of time to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement, telling Tehran it will be impossible to return to the landmark accord if a deal is not struck within the next few weeks.
“Our talks with Iran have reached an urgent point,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters on February 9.
“A deal that addresses the core concerns of all sides is in sight. But if it’s not reached in the coming weeks, Iran’s ongoing nuclear advances will make it impossible for us to return to the JCPOA,” she said, using the acronym for the deal’s official name, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
Psaki noted that Rob Malley, the U.S. special envoy for Iran, has traveled to Vienna for indirect talks with Iran on the possibility of both sides restarting pact compliance.
The Vienna negotiations — attended by Britain, China, France, Germany, Iran, Russia, and indirectly the United States — had broken off on January 28 to allow diplomats to return to their capitals for consultations.
The resumption comes after parties in recent weeks cited progress in seeking to revive the 2015 accord that was supposed to prevent Iran from acquiring an atomic bomb, a goal it has always denied pursuing.
Tehran in 2015 reached an agreement with world powers under which the Islamic republic pledged to reduce its nuclear activities in return for a reduction of international sanctions.
But former U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the agreement in 2018 and reimposed crippling sanctions, prompting Iran to gradually reduce its commitments under the deal.
President Joe Biden has expressed a willingness to rejoin the pact but has insisted that Tehran first honor the terms of the original accord.
Ahead of the resumption of the talks, Tehran had warned that the removal of U.S. sanctions was the “red line” to put the deal back on track.
At least eight rounds of indirect talks have taken place, with participants alternately expressing optimism and pessimism about their outcome.
Iran’s top security official, Ali Shamkhani, criticized the United States’ approach on February 9.
“Voices from the U.S. government show there is no coherence in that country to make political decisions in the direction of advancing the Vienna talks,” Shamkhani, who is the secretary of the country’s Supreme National Security Council, tweeted.
Speaking in Washington on February 8, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said, “There is a U.S. offer, there is a counteroffer. I don’t if know it’s going to be one week, two weeks, three weeks, but certainly we are in the last steps of the negotiation.”
Borrell said reaching agreement on the lifting of sanctions and the rollback of Iran’s nuclear activities was “the most important problem” but that he was hopeful of a breakthrough “because both sides have been showing willingness.”
