Iran postpones nuclear talks after "major progress" this week
Not even a month has passed since Iran sat down again with the UN Security Council countries - minus the United States, with whom it has not negotiated directly - in Vienna. The goal of reaching a new nuclear deal has not seemed close either six months ago with the first round of negotiations or now with just over two weeks of negotiations being postponed again. For Iran, the last few days have been very productive and "a lot of progress" has been made, while Europe takes the opposite view and regrets remaining in a deadlocked situation.
The parties cannot agree. For Tehran, progress has been very important. Ali Bagheri, Iran's chief negotiator, said a few days ago that "the two sides are on the verge of agreeing on the issues that should be on the agenda", adding that "this is a positive and important development since, at the beginning, they did not even agree on the issues to be negotiated". This view contrasts sharply with that expressed by European diplomats who say they are "wasting precious time dealing with new Iranian positions inconsistent with the (nuclear deal)".
The announcement of the postponement of the talks comes at a time when, just as the talks ended before the summer, they have not made significant progress towards the return of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or the signing of a similar new agreement. What worries Western countries is that there is no concrete date for a return to the negotiating table. Some sources consulted by the Al-Sharq media say it could be 27 December, while others say that it is highly unlikely that contacts will resume in Vienna until after the New Year.
For the time being, it seems that the delegations will return to their countries, which suggests that the resumption will not take place in a few days. During this time, both sides are expected to reflect, as the positions of both Iran and the United States have not changed one iota since the indirect negotiations began on 29 November, at least in public. What is more, Joe Biden, far from showing willingness to withdraw the sanctions that Tehran is demanding, warned that the possibility of increasing them was very great if there was no change in the trend of the Vienna talks.
With whom there is a certain amount of agreement on Iran's part is China. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian has praised Xi Jinping's position while criticising that of the West. However, the foreign minister is confident that "the Western parties will act on the basis of logic and, like Iran, will participate in the negotiations in good faith and with initiative". These words have not gone down well in Europe, which claims to have "had many hours of engagement and all delegations have put pressure on Iran to be reasonable", accusing the Iranians of showing two different faces at the negotiating table and in front of the media.
What is clear is that, if neither changes, the negotiation will not move forward. And, unfortunately for the West, the situation compared to months ago, or even to the signing of the JCPOA in 2015, is far from the same. Iran's nuclear programme has made considerable progress, forcing the United States to give in, something it has not done so far. For Tehran, the agreement that Washington unilaterally abandoned in 2018 with Donald Trump at its head represents "a red line" and "will not accept anything less", which seems obvious considering that the JCPOA set the uranium purity limit at 3.67% and the Iranians have been stockpiling uranium enriched to 60% for months.
Iran's change of government over the summer ended the presidency of Hassan Rohani to make way for the ultra-conservative Ebrahim Raisi. It has always been said that the bad things known are better than the good things yet to be known, and recent events seem to add even more value to that saying. Raisi does not seem to show much flexibility and the optimism that Josep Borrell and Enrique Mora were showing a few days ago seems to have faded. What is expected to be approximately two weeks of pause - we will see if it is extended - should help both sides to recapitulate and sit back down to negotiate with a real willingness to understand that has not yet been seen in months of talks.
