US, Iran resume talks on Vienna nuclear deal under low expectations

International negotiators begin this Thursday (4th), in Vienna, a new round of talks with the aim of resuming the nuclear agreement with Iran. Differences between Tehran and Washington, however, bring the resumption of talks into low expectations.

Delegations from China, the US, Russia, France, the United Kingdom and Germany participate in the meeting, with the European Union (EU) mediated, in the first joint conversation since March. The countries participated in the agreement in 2015, which Tehran no longer complied with.

Ali Bagheri Kani, Iran’s top negotiator, called on Washington for “maturity and responsibility” and said that the success of the talks is in the hands of the Americans. “The onus is on those who violated the agreement,” he wrote on Twitter.

Former President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the agreement, which would run until 2031 and would reduce the number of Iranian uranium enrichment centrifuges in 2018. Joe Biden has been trying to resume talks and has pledged to contain nuclear escalation in the Middle East. , but there are many obstacles.

US special envoy for Iran Robert Malley expressed skepticism. In a tweet, he said American expectations “are in check”, but congratulated the efforts of the EU, which presented the project on the resumption of the agreement that will be discussed in Vienna.

Some of the main obstacles are in demands made by Tehran that, until now, have been rejected by Washington. Among them is the end of sanctions against the Revolutionary Guard, the country’s elite security force. The US designates the guard as an international terrorist organization and has signaled that it does not intend to reverse the decision.

Questioned by journalists, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said this week that the Iranian state has supported terrorist networks across the region. “Asked if he would be willing to reverse the decision on the Revolutionary Guard in light of the negotiations, the president [Biden] I said no.”

Tehran is also demanding assurances that a possible future successor to Biden cannot walk away from the deal. The Iranian ambassador to the UN, Majid Takht Ravanchi, blamed the US for the failure of the initiative.

“The objective was delayed because the US has not decided to guarantee that Iran will enjoy the economic benefits promised in the agreement,” he said, referring to the lifting of most of the sanctions against Tehran, which was agreed in the 2015 document. certain, Iran will resume full implementation of the measures.”

Iran refuses to hold direct talks with the US. Thus, it will be up to the Spaniard Enrique Mora, a member of EU diplomacy, to mediate the conversations between Robert Malley and Ali Bagheri Kani.

After the failure of the 2015 agreement, the country returned to enriching uranium above the allowed. Last month, an adviser to the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, said Iran was technically capable of making a nuclear bomb, but had not yet decided whether to build one.

“We have managed to enrich uranium up to 60% and we can easily produce uranium enriched to 90%,” he said at the time.