The delegation met with the Russian and Chinese delegations today. According to diplomats, no major progress is expected in the negotiations that will start tomorrow.Negotiations will be resumed five months later to revive the nuclear agreement signed in 2015 between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (USA, Britain, France, Russia, China) and Germany.
Iran’s delegation, led by chief negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani, arrived in Vienna, the Austrian capital, on Saturday to participate in nuclear talks, which will begin on Monday, Iran’s official news agency ISNA reported.
It was learned that the Iranian delegation held bilateral and trilateral meetings at the expert level with the Chinese and Russian delegations, and that the Iranian authorities also met with the European Union Coordinator Enrique Mora.
According to diplomats, the time for salvaging the agreement, which prevents Iran from producing nuclear weapons and is called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), is limited.
In 2018, the United States unilaterally terminated the agreement with the decision of then-President Donald Trump and began to impose heavy economic sanctions on Tehran. Other countries, on the other hand, are in favor of keeping the agreement in force.
After the withdrawal of the USA, Iran started not to comply step by step with the obligations brought by the agreement as of 2019. The Iranian administration has restarted its uranium enrichment studies. Tehran argues that its uranium enrichment work is for peaceful nuclear power generation.
Six rounds of indirect interviews were conducted
When Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, took office, he promised to return to the deal signed under Barack Obama. Between April and June, six indirect talks were held between the United States and Iran. The new negotiation round is important as it is the first negotiation in the Islamic Republic of Iran after the election of conservative Ibrahim Reisi as president.
Iran’s new negotiating delegation seeks the lifting of sanctions imposed by the US and the European Union on Iran since 2017. The USA and EU, on the other hand, say that this demand is unrealistic.
Concern from Israel
Israel has been against the nuclear deal with Iran from the very beginning. “Israel is very concerned about preparing to lift sanctions and allowing billions of dollars to flow into Iran in exchange for unsatisfactory restrictions in the nuclear framework,” Iranian Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Sunday. “This is the message we are sending by all means to the Americans and other countries negotiating with Iran,” Bennett said.
USA: We will increase the pressure
US Special Representative for Iran Robert Malley said in an interview with BBC Sounds on Saturday that the US and its partners will increase the pressure on Iran if they play time and use the negotiations as an excuse to accelerate its nuclear program.
Reuters/EC, JD
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