Iran talks enter 'tedious' drafting phase as US nears decision point
Negotiators seem to be arguing for more time.
Negotiations on restoring the Iran nuclear deal have entered a ‘tedious’ but ‘necessary’ phase of putting issues agreed in principle into writing, but gaps on critical areas still remain, sources briefed on the talks said. The status reports on the Vienna talks come as the United States approaches an internal decision-point on if it thinks the pact can be revived.
Several diplomats seemed to be implicitly making the case that while progress on restoring the pact was a long slog, it merited being given more time given the forward progress, hard ongoing work of all of the delegations, and the lack of better options. Diplomatic previously reported that the Biden administration is understood to have an internal deadline of the end of the month to determine if the deal will be restored.
“The success of the Vienna talks…is still uncertain, [which is] only logical in such a complex negotiation,” European Union coordinator Enrique Mora wrote Sunday (Jan. 16) on Twitter. “But as coordinator, I can’t but commend delegations’ commitment to a success.”
“Now we are in a phase of the negotiations, which basically is going around the difficult issues and how we can…translate it into words into the document,” a source close to the talks, speaking on condition of anonymity, told journalists Friday (Jan. 13). “So this is probably the most difficult…tedious and long part of the negotiation. When you have to agree on how you will put something that the principle is already agreed, but the details are important.”
“On sanctions lifting, we have cleaned a lot of the text. But still, we are dealing with difficult issues,” the source continued. “The same goes for nuclear. And now we are increasingly working on the third annex, which is about implementation…[and] sequencing.”
“We are now really getting into the nitty gritty details,” he continued. “This is the most tedious…and demanding part of the negotiation, but it is absolutely necessary to reach our objective.”
“We are determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon,” US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday (Jan. 16). “We believe that diplomacy is the best way to do that. But as.. the secretary of state has said, time is running short.”
Given that some progress has been made, that the Iranians have been showing pragmatism, and the lack of better alternative options, the United States should not box itself into an artificial deadline on trying to revive the deal, said Ali Vaez, director of the Iran program at the International Crisis Group, and principal author of a new ICG report on the Iran nuclear deal’s sixth anniversary.
“Even if the details on sanctions relief were completely finalized, I don’t think it is physically possible to bridge all the gaps by the end of the month,” Vaez said in an interview today (Jan. 17).
“What I hear is that in general, the US assessment is that the Iranians are much more pragmatic,” Vaez continued. “The issue is that on key areas of disagreement, progress is still scant, and extremely slow.”
“Some brackets have closed,” he said, describing progress to date as mostly on the side issues. “But the key issues—the scope of sanctions relief, guarantees, sequencing, all of those issues--they have not [yet] been able to bridge the gaps.”
But despite the amount of time it may take to negotiate a restoration of the deal, the alternatives are highly risky, potentially calamitous and offer no certain lasting benefits.
“A realistic understanding of the costs associated with Plan B options renders saving Plan A– restoring the JCPOA – a strategic imperative for all sides,” the new ICG report, The Iran Nuclear Deal at Six: Now or Never, argues:
Resorting to military force could usher in the worst of all worlds. A strike upon Iran’s extensive, well-fortified and geographically dispersed nuclear program would entail substantive costs and severe risks with uncertain benefits. Iran is certain to directly retaliate, as it did in response to the U.S. killing of Soleimani in 2020 … Iran has a formidable capacity for retaliation. In the words of General Kenneth McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command in charge of military operations in the Middle East and South Asia, “Iran’s strategic capacity is now enormous. They’ve got overmatch…in the theatre – the ability to overwhelm”.
A resort to force could also snowball against Washington in other ways. Tehran’s Middle Eastern allies are likely to enter the fray, potentially hitting Israel and trying to push the U.S. out of Iraq and Syria, risking a devastating region-wide escalation.”
“Iran’s nuclear latency would clearly carry risks, but so, too, would pre-emptive strikes, which could well provoke a wider escalation,” the report writes.
The US is left with bad options now because former Pres. Trump quit the Iran nuclear deal that was working and replaced it with nothing, the White House’s Sullivan said Sunday.
“The reason we are in the situation we're in right now is because the previous administration pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, and we are paying the wages of that catastrophic mistake,” Sullivan told CBS.
Optimism may be overstated to buy time
Russia and the EU expressed confidence, meantime, that the talks on restoring the deal will succeed.
“The Vienna talks have speeded up,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told journalists in Geneva on Jan. 10. “We believe that the chances to reach a solution…have increased. This is a positive thing. All parties are demonstrating readiness to solve the remaining problems.”
"Various schemes were possible" for reaching “the restoration of the Iranian nuclear deal in its original form,” he continued, including, he said, “a step-by-step approach based on reciprocity.”
"I would like to emphasize that possible intermediate steps are not going to replace, substitute the basic agreement, which needs to be fully restored,” he added, dismissing talk of an interim deal.
“The atmosphere has improved since Christmas,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell likewise told reporters at an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brest, France Friday (Jan. 14). “I was pessimistic prior to that but now I think we can reach an agreement.”
“In the next few weeks, I hope I will be able to inform you of the final results” of a deal,” he continued. “I hope that we will be able to ensure the agreement.”
The expressed optimism on prospects for restoring the deal in the near term may be being overstated by some as a tactic to try to buy more time, including from Washington.
“The message I got, is the optimism is overstated,” Iran analyst Trita Parsi told me.
France, meantime, like Washington, said the negotiations need to make more rapid progress.
“This negotiation advances way too slow,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told reporters in Brest on Friday. “The choice is to return to the JCPOA agreement very quickly, or a new proliferation crisis with Iran.”
“Today I’m sounding the alert because things go way too slow to come to a conclusion, and if it continues like this there will be nothing left to negotiate,” he said.
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