by Lawrence Norman | UPDATED March 05, 2022 12:09 PM EST
Western and Iranian officials have said they were very close to reaching an agreement to restore the nuclear deal
Russia’s latest demands threatened to derail talks to restore the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, as Moscow said it wanted written guarantees that sanctions relating to Ukraine would make it wider with Tehran under the revived deal. Will not stop doing business.
Demands made by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Saturday Western and Iranian officials said they were close to reaching an agreement to restore the nuclear deal, which replaced most international sanctions on Iran in exchange for tough but temporary sanctions on Tehran’s nuclear removed. Program.
The US left the agreement in May 2018, and Iran has largely expanded its nuclear work since mid-2019. The Vienna talks focused on the precise steps Tehran and Washington would need to take to return the deal to compliance.
Western officials said they want an agreement on the nuclear file this week. The chief negotiators of the European powers left Vienna on Friday to return to their capitals as they waited to try to resolve the final differences between Iran and the US. These included exactly what Washington would raise.
“We are close,” Britain’s chief negotiator for the talks, Stephanie Al-Qaaq, said before her departure on Friday.
Progress in Iran’s nuclear work means Western officials have warned that restoring the 2015 nuclear deal could be impossible too soon because it will no longer be possible to recreate the central benefits of that deal for the US and Europe. Keeping Iran months away from being able to collect enough nuclear fuel for a nuclear weapon.
A confidential report circulated Thursday by the UN nuclear agency revealed that Iran has now produced 33.2 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, about three-quarters of what it needs to have enough weapons-grade 90% fuel for a nuclear warhead. Is. Experts say it will take only a few weeks for Iran to collect enough weapons-grade nuclear fuel.
It was always understood by Western officials that Russia’s specific role in the 2015 nuclear deal would need to be shielded from sanctions. This includes obtaining enriched uranium from Iran and exchanging it for yellow cake, Russia’s work to convert Iran’s Fordo nuclear facility into a research center, and other nuclear-specific deliveries to Tehran facilities.
Mr Lavrov, however, appeared to demand far more comprehensive guarantees, which could introduce major loopholes in the stringent financial, economic and energy sanctions imposed by the West in recent days due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“We have sought a written guarantee … that the current process initiated by the United States does not in any way impair our right to free and full trade, economic and investment cooperation and military-technical cooperation with Islamic State, ‘ said Mr. Lavrov.
Soon after Mr Lavrov’s comments, Russia’s chief negotiator in nuclear talks, Mikhail Ulyanov, tweeted that he had raised questions with a senior European official “to ensure smooth civil nuclear cooperation with Iran”. The negotiations were narrower than what Mr Lavrov had suggested.
A Western diplomat said that if the guarantees are entirely about the work that Russia would do in Iran under a restored nuclear deal, “that can be managed.”
“But if Lavrov is using it as a gimmick, trying to make a big hole out of Ukraine sanctions overall, that is a different story,” the person said.
An Iranian official said his delegation was waiting for an explanation from Moscow.
Either way, the Russian demands are now ready to begin talks next week, two Western diplomats said.
“In my view, a deal is still more likely than not. Seriously, both Washington and Tehran want to make it happen,” said Henry, a director covering global macropolitics and Iran at the Eurasia Group. Rome said. “Russia throwing sand in gear can really bring these two adversaries together to reach a creative solution. Signed the deal.”
Since talks began last April, Iran has refused to negotiate directly with the US, instead, the other parties to the agreement—Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China and the European Union—acted as mediators. has done.
Russia has played a generally constructive role in the talks, Western diplomats have said, at times backing Iran from unreasonable demands and pressuring Tehran – at times publicly – not to drag talks on too long.
However, senior Western officials said that over the past few days, with the Ukraine conflict in the background, Russian officials in the talks were more hesitant, telling their counterparts that they needed to examine new ideas with Moscow.
While talks in Vienna appeared stalled again, a potential obstacle to reviving the nuclear deal may have been removed by International Atomic Energy Agency director-general Rafael Grossi after a visit to Tehran on Saturday.
Mr. Grossi was in Tehran to negotiate an agreement to deal with the three-year investigation by the investigative agency into undeclared nuclear material found in Iran. Tehran is holding on to the investigation and had pushed in Vienna to close the files as part of restoring the nuclear deal, something the agency and Western officials denied.
“That’s why it’s important to have this understanding between us today, which is an understanding of working together, working very closely,” Mr. Grossi said at a news conference in Tehran.
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