US expected to decide by end of January on prospects for Iran deal return
The negotiations "are entering a crucial phase...Iran has squandered a lot of trust and there is not much time, but we intensively use this time together in Vienna," German FM Annalena Baerbock.
The United States is expected to assess by the end of January whether there has been sufficient progress at the Iran talks in Vienna to determine whether or not an understanding on a return to full implementation of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal could be reached by February or March, an Iran expert close to the US negotiating team said.
“There is understood to be an end of January deadline in the U.S. government, to basically be in position to judge if there is a light at end of the tunnel, to make sure that enough progress has been made that a deal could get made at some point in February or March,” Ali Vaez, director of the Iran program at the International Crisis Group, told Diplomatic.
If talks are proceeding at a glacial pace, then the U.S. and European allies would likely switch to a more coercive approach, probably starting with tightening economic sanctions, Vaez said.
US Iran envoy Rob Malley returned to Vienna for talks that resumed on Monday, following a break over the New Year’s holiday.
The State Department said there has been modest progress in the talks to date.
“What we can say at this point is that there was some modest progress in the talks last week,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price told journalists in a department telephone briefing on Tuesday (Jan. 4). “We hope to build on that this week. What is clear is that if we do not soon reach an understanding on.. a mutual return to compliance, Iran’s accelerating nuclear steps will increasingly diminish the nonproliferation benefits of the JCPOA.”
A western negotiator heading back to Vienna earlier this week expressed concern that if the talks proceeded at a slow pace, “they are really not going to make sufficient progress by the end of January, when the U.S. believes that is the deadline for them,” Vaez said.
“But I have also heard from the Iranians that [Iranian deputy foreign minister and lead nuclear negotiator Ali] Bagheri was expected to come back to Vienna for the second part of the eighth round with some new initiatives,” Vaez said. “And there was the hope that if the Iranians adopt a more pragmatic approach, especially if they prioritize some of their demands, then the talks could make more rapid progress.”
A European negotiator at the Vienna talks said today it was possible to make enough progress by the end of the month with sufficient political will.
“It is absolutely feasible with enough good will,” the European negotiator said today (Jan. 5), asked if there is enough momentum to meet this apparent end of January deadline.
“The talks continue to advance slowly but steadily,” Russian ambassador to the IAEA and lead negotiator Mikhail Ulyanov wrote on Twitter today.
The State Department’s Price reiterated that progress at the Vienna talks needed to be accompanied by Iranian restraint on further nuclear advancements. The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran was cited by Russia’s Sputnik Dec. 25 saying Iran would not enrich uranium beyond 60%. Iran last month also made an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency to return cameras to the Karaj centrifuge workshop, that had been damaged by a suspected sabotage attack in June.
“I’ll just reiterate that there has been some progress relative to the beginning of December in identifying the hard issues left to be negotiated,” Price said. “But even if there has been some progress, the fundamental situation really remains. Iran needs to exercise restraint in its nuclear program and pursue negotiations in Vienna seriously.”
The head of Iran’s atomic energy organization told the Russian news agency Sputnik on Dec. 25 that Iran would not increase its uranium enrichment levels beyond the 60% it is already pursuing. A higher level of enrichment, 90%, is weapons-grade.
“Tehran does not intend to exceed the 60% level of uranium enrichment even if the parties to the negotiations in Vienna do not come to an agreement and the United States does not lift its sanctions, Mohammad Eslami, the head of the country's Atomic Energy Organisation (AEOI), said in an interview with Sputnik,” the Russian news agency reported on Dec. 25.
Iran under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was limited to low-level 3.5% uranium enrichment, suitable for energy use. But following then US President Trump’s exit from the deal in 2018 and re-imposition of harsh economic sanctions, Iran since 2019 has been progressively exceeding the deal’s nuclear limits to protest the lack of sanctions relief it was receiving.
The Biden administration has been holding indirect talks with Iran through the other deal parties in Vienna since April to try to work out an understanding on what steps each would take to return to full implementation of the deal. But the talks went into a hiatus in June following Iran’s presidential elections, and did not resume until late November.
“We are pulling in the same direction when it comes to Iran and the JCPOA,” new German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said at a joint press availability with Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the State Department today.
“The discussions and negotiations… are entering a crucial phase,” the top German diplomat continued. “Iran has squandered a lot of trust and there is not much time, but we intensively use this time together in Vienna.”
The five remaining parties to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal—Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia-- concluded at the end of the seventh round of Iran talks that wrapped up in Vienna on Dec. 17 that Iran was taking a more pragmatic approach, Vaez said. That followed Iran’s agreement to a Russian/EU brokered plan to basically adopt as a basis for continued negotiations the text on its nuclear commitments crafted over six previous rounds of talks, in exchange for putting some of its sanctions relief requests in brackets in the text to be negotiated.
The State Department’s Ned Price suggested the calendar on the Iran talks is being determined by technical considerations.
“The calendar that we’ve talked about, the clock that we’ve talked about…is not a temporal clock or calendar, but it’s based on technical assessments, really,” Price told journalists on the briefing call Jan. 4. “So it is not that the clock will run out on a predetermined date…The clock will run out when our experts…come to the conclusion that the… nonproliferation benefits that would be conveyed by a return to the JCPOA…would be outweighed by the advancements that Iran has made in its nuclear program since the last administration made the ill-advised decision to abandon the nuclear deal.”
“When it comes to the posture of the Iranian negotiating team in Vienna, look, we’re in the midst of the eighth round of talks,” Price continued. “Again, we did see some modest progress in the talks last week. We hope to build on that this week…. And I wouldn’t want to prejudge that at this stage.”
Meantime, the head of Israel’s military intelligence was reported to have told Israel’s security cabinet on Sunday (Jan. 2) that an Iranian return to the nuclear deal’s limits was better for Israel’s interests than no deal, Israeli media reported.
IDF military Intelligence chief Aharon Haliva reportedly said “the restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program within the framework of the deal are better for Israel than total non-compliance with the agreement,” the Jerusalem Post reported, citing Israel’s Walla news.
A senior US administration official seemingly struck a marginally more positive tone about diplomatic efforts on Iran ahead of National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s trip to Israel in a backgrounder on Dec. 21, than he had a few days earlier backgrounding about the Biden administration’s approach to the Middle East, before he had been fully briefed by the US team at the conclusion of the 7th round of Vienna talks.
“I'm not going to discuss plan B because…that’s really not how we think about it,” the senior administration official, speaking to journalists on condition he not be named, said on Dec. 21. “It’s a fluid situation, and there's no kind of, you know, plan A, plan B. There are different things you do at different times.”
“I think you've seen it's been reported our director of OFAC [the Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control] was just in the region…mainly talking to private companies about sanctions evasion,” he said. “And I think there will be a pretty constructive and detailed discussion about this issue as we head into Israel this week.”
A few days earlier, on Dec. 17, before the US team had returned from Vienna, he also referenced the “first quarter of 2022” as being when Iran decisions would play out.
“We've been working diplomatically to get this problem back in a box, to return Iran to nuclear compliance with the deal,” the senior administration official said.
“So this is obviously a story that will play out over the first quarter of 2022 and perhaps beyond,” the senior administration official said Dec. 17.
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