The nuclear negotiations with Iran will resume on November 29th in Vienna. The Iranian nuclear chief negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani reported on a corresponding agreement with EU negotiator Enrique Mora on Wednesday evening on Twitter. The European External Action Service announced that senior diplomats from China, Russia, France, Great Britain and Germany will meet with representatives from Tehran under the chairmanship of the EU Foreign Affairs Representative, Josep Borrell.
“We have agreed to start negotiations to lift the illegal and inhuman sanctions on November 29 in Vienna,” wrote nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani. On the US side, the US special envoy for Iran, Rob Malley, will take part in the talks. State Department spokesman Ned Price was confident. A quick agreement and mutual return to compliance with the nuclear deal (JCPOA) are possible, he said in Washington on Wednesday. Washington believes that negotiations should resume where they left off in June.
“Only need a short time if Iranians are serious”
“We believe it is still possible to quickly reach an agreement on mutual return to JCPOA compliance and implement it by resolving the relatively small number of questions that remained open at the end of June,” said Price at a press briefing. “We believe that we can achieve this in a relatively short time if the Iranians are serious. (However) … this window of opportunity will not be open forever, especially if Iran continues to take provocative nuclear moves, ”he added.
Russian negotiator Mikhail Ulyanov stressed on Twitter: “This long-awaited joint decision paves the way for the lifting of US sanctions and the return of Iran to fully implement the nuclear provisions of the 2015 agreement.”
Negotiations suspended in June
Negotiations to restore the 2015 Vienna Agreement were interrupted after the presidential election in June and the change of government in Tehran. President Ebrahim Raisi is expected to take a tough stance on resuming talks in Vienna.
The previous six rounds of talks have taken place indirectly, with European diplomats in particular shuttling back and forth between American and Iranian representatives, as Iran refuses direct contact with the United States.
The remaining partners are trying to get the US back to the agreement. The Vienna deal was supposed to prevent the construction of Iranian nuclear weapons. In return, the sanctions on Iran should be lifted. In response to the US sanctions, Tehran began to exceed the imposed technical restrictions in 2019, including making its uranium more and more weapons-grade.