After talks over restoring Ian’s nuclear deal failed in Qatar’s Doha late June, delegates of Iran and the US are expected to resume holding indirect talks this Thursday.
It was on Wednesday that Enrique Mora, the representative of the European Union in the Iran nuclear negotiations, announced that he going to Vienna to resume talks between Iran and world powers to hopefully revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Mora wrote in a tweet that he is “on the way to Vienna to negotiate the full implementation of the JCPOA based on the text presented by the coordinator of the negotiations [Joseph Burrell] on July 20. I am grateful to the Austrian authorities.”
The senior officials of Iran and the US also announced the resumption of indirect talks to revive the JCPOA. Iran’s chief negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani said in this regard that “the ball is in Washington’s court to save the deal.” Referring to the unilateral withdrawal of the US from the JCPOA, Kani also noted in his tweet this Wednesday that “the responsibility to revive the deal lies with those who violated it in the first place.”
Majid Takht Ravanchi, Iran’s former ambassador to the United Nations, also addressed the resumption of the talks and said that Tehran has negotiated in good faith to revive this agreement; “Achieving this goal has been delayed because the United States has not yet decided to guarantee that Iran will receive the economic benefits promised in the agreement,” he said.
Nasser Kanani, the spokesman of Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, also announced on Wednesday that top Iranian negotiating members have left for Vienna to resume negotiations to lift sanctions against Iran. “In this round of talks, which will be held with the coordination of the European Union, the goal of the Islamic Republic is to reach a stable agreement that guarantees the rights and interests of the Iranian nation.” Kanani noted.
US way of announcing the news
Several US officials also announced the resumption of the nuclear talks with Iran in Vienna but at the same time, noted that Washington is not optimistic that the parties can reach to a common ground.
The US special envoy for Iran, Rob Malley, for example, said that he would go to Vienna for the talks, but did not expect much progress. “Our expectations are low, but the United States welcomes the EU’s efforts and is ready for a good-faith effort to reach an agreement,” he wrote in a tweet this Wednesday.
Ned Price, the spokesperson of the US State Department, also said that the new proposal of the European Union to return to the JCPOA is based on the text that was already reached in the Vienna negotiations in March that failed to produce any results.
“Borrell invited us to come to Vienna this week to see if there is a possibility to finish the negotiations. We appreciate his efforts to bring the negotiations to a successful conclusion,” Price said, adding that “at this stage our current expectations are still low, but to reach an agreement, Iran must abandon the secondary demands on the JCPOA.”
In May 2018, the US government withdrew from the JCPOA, an agreement that was concluded and even approved by a United Nations Security Council resolution in 2016. And the current government headed by Joe Biden has also refused to return to it yet. Likewise, EU countries party to the deal have been reluctant to comply with their own commitments. In reaction, Iran has refused to implement parts of its obligations under the deal.
