After blowing hot and cold, Iran agrees to return to the negotiating table. Discussions in the Austrian capital Vienna to relaunch the 2015 agreement on Iran’s nuclear program will resume on November 29, Tehran’s chief nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani and the Union announced on Wednesday (November 3). European.
Tehran said last month, after a meeting between Ali Bagheri Kani and the European coordinator of the talks, Enrique Mora, that talks with the world powers involved in the agreement would resume by the end of the month of november.
Begun in April in Vienna, where the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was signed, discussions aimed at bringing Iran and the United States back into the agreement were postponed until June, after the victory in the Iranian presidential election of the ultra-conservative Ebrahim Raïssi.
The EU said the meeting would be chaired by Enrique Mora. Representatives from China, Russia, France, Germany, United Kingdom and Iran will take part, she said in a statement.
The United States has “Greeted” the announcement of the resumption of negotiations and confirmed that they would participate with their envoy for Iran, Rob Malley. “We believe that it is possible to reach an agreement quickly and to implement it as quickly”, to save the 2015 agreement supposed to prevent Tehran from gaining access to the atomic bomb, State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.
He assured that alone “A relatively limited number of questions” were still “Pending”, when these indirect negotiations with Iran were suspended in June. “We think that if the Iranians are serious, we can do this fast enough”, he added, while warning that the ” launch window “ was wrong “To remain open indefinitely”.
Persistence of tensions
The United States unilaterally left the agreement in 2018, under the presidency of Donald Trump, who deemed it insufficient and restored all the sanctions against Iran, the lifting of which was provided for by the text. In return, Tehran has gradually freed itself from the restrictions imposed on its nuclear program.
Tensions remain high, however: the Iranian Revolutionary Guards announced on Wednesday that they had failed, last week, an attempt by the US Navy to seize a tanker carrying Iranian oil in the Arabian Sea.
The Pentagon called this version of events“Inaccurate and deceptive”. An official from the US Department of Defense who requested anonymity said the US Navy did not attempt to seize the tanker.