Europeans, US warn Iran nuclear talks won’t be open-ended
Western officials warned Tehran on Sunday that negotiations to regenerate its nuclear deal could not continue indefinitely, following the sides announced a break following election of a fresh hardline president in Iran.
Negotiations have been ongoing in Vienna since April to work through how Iran and america can both go back to compliance with the nuclear pact, which Washington abandoned in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump, and Iran subsequently violated.
Sunday's pause in the talks came after Ebrahim Raisi, a hardliner and fierce critic of the West, won Iran's presidential election on Friday. Two diplomats said they expected a break of around 10 days.
Raisi will need office in early August, replacing pragmatist Hassan Rouhani, under whom Tehran struck the offer agreeing to curbs to its nuclear programme in return for the lifting of international sanctions.
Iranian and Western officials alike say Raisi’s rise is unlikely to improve Iran’s negotiating position: Iran’s hardline Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei already has final say on all major policy.
Still, some Iranian officials have suggested that Tehran could don't mind spending time in pushing via an agreement prior to the new president takes office in August, to provide Raisi a clean slate.
An Iranian government official close to the talks told Reuters that if a deal is finalised before Raisi takes office, the brand new president should be able to deflect blame for just about any concessions onto his predecessor: "Rouhani, not Raisi, will be blamed for any future problems about the deal," he said.
Britain, France and Germany, the European "E3", have effectively been acting as mediators, shuttling between the Iranian delegation and a US team that - Washington having quit the pact - isn't a formal participant.
The Western countries say the longer Iran violates the deal and produces banned nuclear material, the harder it becomes to restore the pact.
"As we have stated before, time is on nobody’s side. These talks can't be open ended," E3 diplomats said in a note delivered to reporters, adding that the most challenging issues still ought to be resolved.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan echoed those comments telling broadcaster ABC News that there is still “a good distance to travel”, including on sanctions and on the nuclear commitments that Iran must make.
With the talks on pause, attention will now turn to extending a separate accord between Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog IAEA, which expires on June 24. Iran is finished extra monitoring measures which were introduced under the 2015 deal.
EU political director Enrique Mora, who's coordinating the nuclear talks, said he expected an extension that would let data continue being collected while positioning limits on the IAEA’s usage of it for now.
