MOSCOW: Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in Moscow on Wednesday that he expects negotiations on the Iran nuclear deal to restart in Austria soon.
“We are now finalising consultations on this matter and will soon restore our negotiations in Vienna,” he told reporters after talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
The 2015 nuclear deal gave Iran sanctions relief in return for tight controls on its nuclear programme.
In 2018, then-US president Donald Trump withdrew from the multilateral accord and began reimposing sanctions.
Tehran has gradually rolled back its nuclear commitments since 2019.
US President Joe Biden reversed Trump’s decision to pull the United States from international negotiations on curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
But talks in Vienna to revive the deal have been at an impasse since June, when Iran’s ultraconservative new President Ebrahim Raisi was elected. Lavrov said Wednesday that the negotiations “should be resumed as soon as possible,” and called on the United States to return to its obligation under the accord.
Russian’s foreign minister said that the international community was waiting for the United States to “return to legal obligations of the nuclear deal” and end “illegal restrictions on Iran and all of its trading partners.”
OTHER OPTIONS
President Joe Biden’s national security adviser said on Tuesday that diplomacy is the best way to rein in Iran’s nuclear programme even as he reaffirmed Biden’s warning to Tehran that Washington could turn to other options if negotiations fail.
Biden senior aide Jake Sullivan hosted Israeli national security adviser Eyal Hulata for talks which, according to a US official, gave the two allies a chance to share intelligence and develop a “baseline assessment” of how far Tehran’s nuclear programme has advanced.
US experts believe the time it would take Iran to achieve nuclear “breakout” – enough enriched uranium to build a nuclear bomb – has “gone from about 12 months down to a period of about a few months” since Trump pulled out of the pact, the US official said earlier, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Iran has consistently denied it is developing a nuclear bomb.
Sullivan in Tuesday’s talks “emphasised President Biden’s fundamental commitment to Israel’s security and to ensuring that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon,” the White House said in a statement.
“Mr Sullivan explained that this administration believes diplomacy is the best path to achieve that goal, while also noting that the president has made clear that if diplomacy fails, the United States is prepared to turn to other options,” it added.
Sullivan’s words echoed the message that Biden gave Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett during a White House meeting in August. Tuesday’s meeting of the US-Israel Strategic Consultative Group included military, intelligence and diplomatic officials and came amid stalled international diplomacy with Iran.
Western powers have been trying for weeks to get Tehran to commit to resume indirect negotiations with the United States in Vienna.
US officials have declined to specify what actions are under consideration if diplomacy with Iran collapses.
Asked whether that includes military options, the senior US official, who briefed reporters ahead of Tuesday’s talks, said only that “we’ll be prepared to take measures that are necessary.”
Behind Tehran’s stalling is an attempt to gain leverage to extract more concessions when negotiations do eventually resume, some officials and analysts have said, including by advancing its uranium enrichment programme. – Agencies
