QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – European powers have cast doubts over the possibility that Iran could restore the nuclear deal signed with the United States, among others in 2015.
France, the United Kingdom and Germany have raised questions about Iran’s intentions to restore the nuclear agreement signed in 2015.
This comes days after Tehran sent its response to the European Union’s latest proposed text for reviving the deal.
On August 8, a draft text was circulated for both parties to either accept or reject. In the first response given in mid-August, Iran hardened its position in the response given on September 1.
But what is the Iran deal?
Formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the remarkable accord was reached in Vienna on July 14, 2015, between Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States – plus Germany) together with the European Union. However it went into effect in January 2016.
Under the deal, and in return for lifting the nuclear-related sanctions, Iran agreed to dismantle much of its nuclear program and to open its facilities to international inspections.
“The comprehensive, long-term deal that we achieved with our allies and partners to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon represents a powerful display of American leadership and diplomacy,” the then US President Barak Obama commended the deal which was signed on a “historic day.”
However, seeking a ‘better deal,’ the US President Donald Trump (Obama’s successor) withdrew from the deal. Since then, its fate and the ramifications it has or even the repercussions it could cause remain uncertain. Things rapidly changed for the worst.
Following the killing of the leader of Quds Force General Qassem Suleimani in January 2020, Iran announced it would no longer limit its uranium enrichment.
Since April 2021, powers have sought to restore the deal. Up to July, there seemed no hope. However, after much stalling, the talks which are chaired by the European Union resumed in Vienna in late August.
In the September response Iran sent, it demanded a renegotiation by the European Union to end the probe to the undeclared nuclear material found in Iran. Time and again it has said unless the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) close that probe, it will not fully implement a nuclear deal.
The soundness of the Iranian September demand could be touched elsewhere.
“With this agreement, the IAEA can go wherever the evidence leads. No facility – declared or undeclared – will be off limits, and there is a time certain for assuring access. There is no other country to which such a requirement applies. This arrangement is both unprecedented and unique,” then US Secretary of State John Kerry said early in September 2015.
On Monday, US State Department Antony Blinken told reports, “I cannot give you a timeline except to say, again, that Iran seems either unwilling or unable to do what is necessary to reach an agreement.”
Blinken said the step taken by Tehran is a “backward” one that would make any possibility to restore the agreement “unlikely.”
Delving deep into demands set by Tehran there seems another bottom-line demand made by Tehran. Wanting to avert the 2018 scenario by the Trump’s administration that renegaded on the Obama’s, Iran wants any new deal, if any, be a sustainable and a lasting one. Iran seeks guarantees that the economic dividends implied will endure. This would necessitate unfavorable concessions by the United States.
The three Western nations (France, the UK and Germany) say Iran’s demands are preventing talks from resuming in Vienna. Tehran categorically denies such allegations.
Israel urges the US not to make any concessions. For the mission, it has sent a series of high-ranking officials to Washington.
Since its coming to power in 2020, the Biden Administration has made restoring the deal a top foreign policy priority, however, Biden faces a bipartisan opposition at home. However, Iran’s bottom-line demands and the ability by other parties to fulfill them cast doubts over the efforts exerted to revive the suspending deal that could by a thing of the past.
Either case, there would be no breakthrough before the US congressional mid-term elections on November 8.