There are still “significant challenges,” said EU chief negotiator Enrique Mora on Friday afternoon Wien. “We don’t have a lot of time and a lot of work to do,” said Mora. The time for negotiations is not unlimited. “There is obviously an urgency,” said Mora.
Diplomats from France, Germany and Great Britain were “disappointed and worried” on Friday afternoon, according to a letter available to the APA. Iran proposed changes to the text of the previous six rounds of negotiations. “Tehran is falling back on almost all of the difficult compromises that have been worked out over several months of hard work.” Iran interrupted negotiations over five months ago and has since advanced its nuclear program well. The current round is the first after the change of power in Tehran, where Ebrahim Raisi, a conservative hardliner, has been president since August.
According to the letter, Iran has taken steps backwards in terms of diplomatic progress in previous rounds, complained the European diplomats. “It is unclear how these new gaps can be closed in a realistic time frame on the basis of the new Iranian drafts.” The diplomats asked for the negotiations to be resumed soon. “But we’re running out of time.”
The US was also disillusioned after the talks. “The new Iranian government is not following up with constructive proposals Wien “said the spokeswoman for US President Joe Biden, Jen Psaki, according to dpa. Much progress has been made in the past negotiations, but Iran was not this week about clarifying the still disputed points,” she said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken criticized at the “Reuters Next” conference that the Islamic Republic was not taking a revival of the 2015 nuclear agreement seriously. If one gets stuck with diplomacy and Iran continues to develop its nuclear program, Washington will pursue other options. He didn’t give any details.
In the middle of next week, the negotiators want to get in again Wien meet, as well as the Chinese ambassador to the UN in Wien, Wang Qun, told journalists after the end of the talks in the luxury hotel Palais Coburg. The talks are expected to continue on Tuesday or Wednesday for the seventh round. The delegations would first have to travel to the capitals of their respective home countries and hold political talks. The Chinese chief negotiator Qun spoke of “reasonably productive” talks.
On Friday, the heads of delegation “took stock” of the discussions at expert level, as Mora had previously written on Twitter. Mora spoke of “fruitful talks” after the meeting.
Iran, following the presidential election of the hardliner and clergyman Raisi with a new negotiating team Wien came, met in the seventh round of talks with the remaining contractual partners. There were still no direct talks with the USA. The fronts are hardened. As always, the meetings, also known under the format of the “Joint Commission”, are accompanied by a small but noisy group of demonstrators who protested against the Iranian regime.
The USA, which withdrew from the nuclear pact in 2018 under ex-President Donald Trump, continues to participate only indirectly in the negotiations. Germany, France, Great Britain, Russia and China mediate between the two warring states. The delegations from the two countries are negotiating in two different luxury hotels.
The round of negotiations was the first diplomatic rapprochement after a five-month break. The nuclear deal (JCPOA) with Iran was in 2015 after years of tough struggle Wien has been decided. The treaty was supposed to make the path to the atomic bomb more difficult for Iran. In return, sanctions against the internationally isolated country were lifted. Israel is strictly against the revival of the treaty. There is also great skepticism in the USA, especially since the Iranian nuclear program is well advanced and Tehran is categorically calling for the lifting of all sanctions.
European diplomats had hoped for a signal of goodwill from Iran just at the start of the new round of talks. Iran reported on Thursday that it had submitted new proposals to the Europeans and that they wanted to give them time to review. With good will, a good solution is possible, it said from Tehran.
It was only on Wednesday that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced that, according to the latest assessments, Iran is further expanding its uranium enrichment capabilities, contrary to the 2015 nuclear agreement. Tehran has therefore started to enrich uranium in the underground Fordo facility with modern centrifuges to 20 percent. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett took this report on Thursday to demand that the Vienna negotiations be terminated immediately by the world powers.
Source: Nachrichten
