SULAIMANI (ESTA) — The last round of Iran nuclear talks ended because Tehran right now does not seem to be serious about doing what is necessary to return to compliance with a 2015 deal, a senior U.S. official said.
Indirect U.S.-Iranian talks on saving the 2015 nuclear deal broke off until next week as European officials voiced dismay on Friday at sweeping demands by Iran’s new government.
Reuters cited Diplomats as saying that the Iranian delegation had proposed sweeping changes to a text that was painstakingly negotiated in previous rounds and that European officials had said was 70-80% finished.
U.S. State Secretary Antonio Blinken said on Friday that the United States would not let Iran drag out the process while continuing to advance its program, according to Reuters.
“What we’ve seen in the last couple of days is that Iran right now does not seem to be serious about doing what’s necessary to return to compliance, which is why we ended this round of talks in Vienna,” Blinken told the Reuters Next Conference.
“We’re going to be consulting very closely and carefully with all of our partners in the process itself … and we will see if Iran has any interest in engaging seriously,” he added.
Senior officials from France, Britain and Germany said over the five months ago, Iran had interrupted negotiations.
“Since then, Iran has fast-forwarded its nuclear program. This week, it has back-tracked on diplomatic progress made,” they said in a statement.
It “is unclear how these new gaps can be closed in a realistic time frame”, they added.
Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron said more nations should be involved in the talks if the Vienna talks failed.
“I think it’s very difficult to find an agreement if the Gulf countries, Israel, all those whose security is directly affected, don’t take part,” Macron told reporters in Dubai.
The 2015 agreement imposed strict limits on Iran’s uranium enrichment activities, extending the time it would need to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb, if it chose to, to at least a year from around two to three months. Most experts say that period is now shorter than before the deal.
Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons, saying it only wants to master nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
In exchange for the nuclear restrictions, the 2015 deal struck by Iran and six major powers – Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States – lifted many U.S., European Union and U.N. sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
After more than two years of Iranian adherence to the core curbs, however, then-President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the deal in 2018, calling it too soft on Tehran, and reimposed painful U.S. economic sanctions on Tehran.
Tehran retaliated from 2019 by breaching many of the deal’s limits on enrichment and other restrictions, and advancing well beyond them. With the deal’s nuclear benefits now badly eroded, some Western officials say there is little time left before the foundation of the deal is damaged beyond repair.
