First modification:
The high representative of the European Union for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, clarified that, although there is no fixed date, the talks with Iran on the nuclear agreement will take place in Austria and not in Belgium, as Iranian media reported. However, he was open to prior contact, while Iran asked the United States for “seriousness” in this attempt to rescue the pact, signed in 2015.
The meetings for the negotiation of the nuclear agreement with Iran will remain, for now, in Vienna. This was made known by Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, who played down reports in Iranian media that had suggested a possible meeting in Brussels.
“The talks are scheduled in Vienna (Austria) and will take place on a date not yet set,” Borrell confirmed at the end of a meeting between European foreign ministers.
Borrell said that Tehran “would like to have some preliminary conversations with me and other members of the nuclear agreement before they all sit down together,” but stressed that there is nothing concrete about it. Of course, he left open the door of a possible meeting, a kind of preparatory meeting, to resume talks as soon as possible.
Last week, Enrique Mora, Deputy Secretary General of the European External Action Service, as well as coordinator of the pact, opened the possibility that the Iranian negotiating team would visit Brussels in order to resume a dialogue.
However, the United States – which under the Trump Administration abandoned the nuclear deal in 2018 – does not believe that meetings in Belgium are necessary before the resumption, in the words of State Department spokesman Ned Price.
Price specified that “the destination we are looking for is Vienna, not an intermediate step in Brussels.” He also stated that the talks “should be resumed as soon as possible.”
Approaches to maintaining the covenant
In April, Iran and the six powers – the United States, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom and Germany – began rapprochement to reestablish the nuclear agreement agreed in 2015.
The exploratory talks were suspended in June after the election of Ibrahim Raisi as Iran’s new president, although on Monday he said he supported them.
“We are serious about keeping negotiations focused on results. But we have to be serious on the other side … The other side’s show of seriousness is the removal of sanctions,” Raisi said on television, referring to To united states.
Former President Donald Trump, upon withdrawing from the pact, imposed new economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic, including a ban on the acquisition of dollars by Iranian banks or the trading of gold and other precious metals.
Before leaving the White House, Trump added new sanctions, such as Iran’s ban on trading aluminum, zirconium carbide or zircon sand.
In response to the reimposition of sanctions, Tehran began to breach the agreement by rebuilding enriched uranium reserves, refining it to higher purity and installing advanced centrifuges to speed up production.
For this reason, the signatory powers have urged Iran to return to negotiations, warning that time is running out as its nuclear program advances well beyond the limits of the 2015 nuclear pact.
This same Monday, Borrell pointed out that it is “a critical moment for the Iranian nuclear pact”: “We made it clear to Iran that time is not on their side and it is better to quickly return to the negotiating table.”
With Reuters and EFE
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