Nuclear deal without Moscow?
US issues Russia ultimatum in Iran talks
03/13/2022, 6:14 p.m
On the home stretch, Russia is setting new conditions in the negotiations for a nuclear deal with Iran. It calls for exceptions to the sanctions in relations with Tehran. Washington strictly rejects the request.
The US will not negotiate exemptions from sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine war to salvage the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Instead, the US would seek an alternative deal without Russia unless the Kremlin backs down from its demands at the last minute, a senior US State Department official told The Wall Street Journal.
Moscow has a week to withdraw its demand for written guarantees that sanctions imposed on Russia for invading Ukraine will not affect its economic ties with Iran. Such guarantees could undermine the West’s tough sanctions against Russia.
“No room for exceptions”
“I see no scope for going beyond the limits of the JCPOA,” said the senior US official, referring to the 2015 nuclear deal officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). “I think it’s safe to say that there’s no room for exceptions beyond that.”
Former US President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018 and re-imposed sweeping sanctions on Iran on the grounds that the deal failed to prevent the country’s path to a nuclear weapon. Iran then expanded its nuclear work, violating most of the deal’s limitations. A return to the nuclear deal is one of the foreign policy goals of incumbent US President Joe Biden.
The State Department official said a deal between Iran and the US was “within reach” and that a few issues still stood in the way of an agreement when talks in Vienna stalled on Friday over Russia’s demands. The official called the Russian demands “the biggest stumbling block and the biggest obstacle to an agreement”.