The latest UN nuclear reports show the existence of enriched uranium in areas that would not be part of its nuclear programme, which has provoked Washington's mistrust

US is wary of Tehran's commitments to return to nuclear deal

photo_camera PHOTO/AFP - US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken

Since Joe Biden's arrival at the White House, Washington has begun to draw up a foreign policy focused on re-establishing diplomatic ties with different countries. After four years of distancing themselves from the Iranian country, the United States, together with Europe, have strengthened their positions with Iran with the aim of getting Joe Biden to return to the nuclear pact that Donald Trump decided to unilaterally break.

However, the latest UN nuclear reports have once again accused Iran of a lack of transparency after finding traces of enriched uranium in several areas that were not reported as part of its atomic programme. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken claims that these actions could lead to Iran having a nuclear bomb "in a matter of weeks" if it does not stop supplying fissile uranium and continues to accelerate its nuclear programme.

The data collected in the reports support the nuclear arms race that Iran is carrying out, since compared to the 202.8 kilos of enriched uranium that the agreement allowed it, Iran currently has 3,241 kilos, although it is far from the six tonnes it had stockpiled before the agreement was approved.

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Following these actions, Blinken stated that the US does not know whether "Iran is willing and ready to do whatever is necessary to respect the agreement again", in a context that was beginning to take its first steps towards reconciliation between the two countries on nuclear issues.

During Donald Trump's term in office, the former Republican president broke the nuclear agreement with Iran in 2017 and decided to immediately reinstate sanctions against Tehran "at the highest level". According to Trump, "if we did nothing, the world's biggest sponsor of terrorism would soon obtain the most dangerous weapon", in reference to Tehran's possible acquisition of an atomic bomb. After executing the rupture and under the argument of "American First", Trump ignored pressure from France, Germany and the UK not to abandon the agreement and opened a new breach of instability in the Middle East region.

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The current president, Joe Biden, decided to open the way for reconciliation under the pretext of returning to the nuclear deal if Iran promised to respect nuclear restrictions. Both Iran and the US have been meeting since last April in Vienna on a roadmap that the Americans have described as "full respect versus full respect" for the deal. However, Blinken insists that they are "not yet at the stage of respect for respect" and doubts whether "it will be possible to do so".

In the rescue of the deal, Blinken had already agreed to lift some sanctions that continued to weigh on the Iranian economy and stated that Iran "already knows what it needs to do to come back into compliance on the nuclear issue". To this, the secretary added that according to what has happened so far, they do not know if "Iran is ready and willing to make a decision" as they "have not yet had a response".

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These statements refer to Iran's latest moves after concealing and limiting access by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to nuclear sites it had been monitoring. However, Tehran allowed the inspections to continue in the course of talks in Vienna.

Agreement on a delicate moment

The Iranian issue is part of an important strand of Biden's foreign policy. Last February, France, Germany, the UK and the US issued a joint declaration on the nuclear deal, announcing that 'the E3 and the United States expressed their shared fundamental security interest in upholding the nuclear non-proliferation regime and ensuring that Iran can never develop a nuclear weapon'.

Since then, talks on the deal have taken place in several meetings in the Swiss capital, without reaching any resolution.

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Last April, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned that if the talks continued without a solution, Iran would leave the nuclear deal commission for the return of the United States. As reported by the DPA news agency, the Iranian deputy minister said that "if there is progress, we will continue. If not, we will leave the talks".

However, different negotiators of the nuclear programme have offered a positive assessment of the third round of negotiations in the hope of achieving tangible results within three weeks, as they "would have achieved indisputable progress", which has not yet been made public.

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