Diplomacy ramps up to try to break impasse on Iran talks
As EU envoy Mora heads to Iran, US Iran envoy Malley says US 'realistic' that Iran may not be interested. Blinken: ‘We remain ready to return to talks,’ but ‘prepared to to turn to other options'
EU Political Director Enrique Mora travels to Iran on Oct. 14 to meet new Iran nuclear negotiating team, stressing “urgency” of need to return to talks.
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi to brief U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Oct. 19, Senator’s office says.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken huddles with Israel, UAE FMs in Washington. Blinken: “We remain ready to return to talks,’ but ‘prepared to turn to other options if Iran doesn’t change course”
US Iran envoy Rob Malley to travel to Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar. Malley: “We are realistic. We know that there is a good possibility that Iran is going to choose a different path, and we need to coordinate with Israel and with other partners in region.”
Diplomacy by the United States, Europe, Israel and Gulf states is ramping up to try to prod Iran back to talks on returning to the nuclear deal, while officials are beginning to more openly discuss the prospect of developing options for a Plan B if Iran is not interested.
European Union political director Enrique Mora and EU ambassador to the IAEA Stephan Klement will travel to Iran for meetings with the new Iran nuclear negotiating team on Thursday (Oct. 20).
“As coordinator of the JCPOA, I will raise the urgency to resume JCPOA negotiations in Vienna,” Mora wrote on Twitter today on his travel to Iran. “Crucial to pick up talks from where we left last June to continue diplomatic work.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, meeting with his Israeli and Emirati counterparts in Washington today, said while the United States prefers a diplomatic resolution and for the US and Iran to mutually return to compliance with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the US is prepared to turn to other options.
“We’ve been clear that…we would like to see a mutual return to compliance of the JCPOA,” Blinken said at a joint press availability with Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed at the State Department today. “But Iran’s responses, or rather lack thereof, have not been encouraging.”
“We remain ready to return to talks and think that we should do so soon,” Blinken said. “But…the runway that we have left to do that is getting shorter and shorter, and so we are watching Iran’s comments, posture very, very carefully. And…we are prepared to turn to other options if Iran doesn’t change course, and these consultations with our allies and partners are a part of that.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said he endorsed Blinken’s comments on attempting diplomacy, but warned of military options if diplomacy fails.
“Yes, other options are going to be on the table if diplomacy fails,” Lapid said. “And by saying other options, I think everybody understands here, in Israel, in the Emirates, and in Tehran what is it that we mean.”
France also expressed exasperation with the new Iranian government’s delays and posturing, in a harsh statement describing Mora’s trip to Iran as occurring at a moment of growing “crisis” over Iran’s delays at returning to talks.
“While refusing to negotiate, Iran is creating de facto situations on the ground that further complicate its return to the JCPOA,” the France Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said today. “This trip to Tehran by European coordinator Enrique Mora therefore comes in a context of crisis and at a critical moment for the future of the nuclear agreement.
“As we have said constantly for four months, France, its E3 partners, its other JCPOA partners and the United States are ready to return to the Vienna negotiations without delay and to resume them at a point where we had left them last June,” the France MFA statement continued. “We expect Iran to demonstrate the same clarity in its intentions.”
US Iran envoy Rob Malley, describing US and Israeli consultations over their differences over the merits of the US possibly returning to the nuclear deal, said it seemed a realistic prospect that the new Iranian government may just not be interested.
“We are realistic,” Malley said today in a conversation with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Aaron David Miller. “We know that there is a good possibility that Iran is going to choose a different path, and we need to coordinate with Israel and with other partners in region.”
“I will be traveling to Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar in just a matter of days … to talk about our efforts to come back into the JCPOA and to talk about what options we have to control Iran’s nuclear program if we can’t achieve that goal,” Malley said.
“It goes to how catastrophic a decision it was to unilaterally withdraw,” US Iran envoy Rob Malley said of Trump decision to quit Iran nuclear deal in 2018. “We are now talking to Iran about the issues of the JCPOA rather than decisions that go beyond it. And that is one of the legacies that we are dealing with now.”
And Malley noted the bitter irony that, because Trump in 2018 quit the deal whose nuclear limits Iran had until then been observing, negotiators in 2021 are now forced to spend months trying to negotiate Iran’s return to those nuclear limits, instead of talking about the concerns some critics of the deal had, including the issues the pact did not cover.
“What we are telling the Iranians is, let’s not look at the JCPOA as the end of diplomacy, let’s hopefully look at it as the beginning of more negotiations,” Malley said of the increasingly remote-seeming prospect of follow on talks.
“If we had remained within the JCPOA--then we would have had all these years of implementing it and, at this point, I believe we would have been in talks with Iran about these other issues,” Malley said.
“It goes to how catastrophic a decision it was to unilaterally withdraw,” Malley continued. “We are now talking to Iran about the issues of the JCPOA rather than decisions that go beyond it. And that is one of the legacies that we are dealing with now.”