PARIS (Reuters) – Negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program remain “difficult” but there are signs in favor of a deal, a source at the Elyse’s office said on Friday after talks between French President Emmanuel Macron and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
Indirect talks between Iran and the United States on the 2015 agreement resumed two months ago in Vienna, after a long hiatus following the election of the Iranian president of the ultraconservative Ebrahim Rassi, but the negotiators complain of their slowness.
According to a French diplomatic source, the month of February could be “decisive” after “timid” progress.
Since Donald Trump’s decision in 2018 to withdraw the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA), the technical name of the text on the Iranian nuclear program signed in Vienna in 2015, Thran has taken many freedoms in relation to the agreement, particularly in terms of uranium enrichment.
European envoy Enrique Mora, who is coordinating the talks in Vienna, announced on Twitter on Friday that delegations were returning to their respective countries for a break, before resuming the seventh cycle next week.
Representatives from Germany, China, France, Britain, Iran and Russia are taking part in the talks.
“Participants will return to their respective capitals for consultations and instructions. Political decisions are needed now. Bon voyage all participants,” Mora tweeted.
Thran demands the lifting of all American sanctions before any decision concerning nuclear power. Western negotiators believe, on the contrary, that negotiations on nuclear power and the lifting of sanctions must go hand in hand.
Experts point out that the longer Iran breaks free from the deal, the more skills it will acquire and the time it would need to build an atomic bomb, should it ever make that decision, making it a de facto an unnecessary nuclear agreement. Thran assures that he never intended to acquire the nuclear weapon.
(Report John Irish, French version Tangi Salan, Sophie Louet and Bertrand Boucey)