Iran nuclear deal talks to resume next week: Update

Adds comments from US officials

Talks aimed at reviving the Iran nuclear deal started well this week, but Washington and Tehran are still at odds over the sequence of steps required before US sanctions against Iran's oil sector are lifted.

The EU, which is chairing the talks in Vienna about the potential for the US to return to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal, said that today's discussions "took stock" of progress. The expert groups established earlier this week to identify measures to be taken on Iran's nuclear implementation and US sanctions relief will continue their work, and all parties will reconvene next week.

The sessions of the JCPOA joint commission and expert-level discussions on 6-9 April are the first time US and Iranian diplomats are discussing, even if indirectly, a possible US return to the nuclear deal. Former president Donald Trump pulled the US out of the agreement in 2018.

"The talks were businesslike," a senior US official told reporters following the conclusion of talks. "This was just the first step of this first phase of a potential return to the JCPOA."

Iran's deputy foreign minister Abbas Araqchi and US special Iran envoy Rob Malley, both of whom were involved in negotiating the 2015 agreement, led their countries' delegations in Vienna.

Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, speaking after the talks, said the US should return to full compliance first, and that "Iran will reciprocate following rapid verification". Zarif also called for the removal of all sanctions imposed by Trump administration's "without distinction between arbitrary designations".

Zarif's statements raise questions about Iran's desire to return to compliance with the agreement, despite Tehran's publicly stated intent to do so, the senior US official said.

" Iran has said on many occasions that its intent is to come back into compliance with the JCPOA and agreed to these indirect talks— we read that as a sign that perhaps they mean what they say when they claim that they want to find a way back to the JCPOA," the US official said. "The question mark has to do with repeated statements by Iran that all sanctions since 2017 must be lifted."

Iran has indicated that doing so would require lifting "terrorism" designations issued under Trump against Iran's central bank, state-owned NIOC and other oil sector firms. US diplomats indicate that they would be prepared to offer relief of such sanctions but would not remove other "terrorism" designations on Iranian individuals and organizations so long as they do not get in the way of Iran's trade and financial exchanges with the rest of the world.

The US has provided assurances publicly and in indirect exchanges with the Iranian diplomats that President Joe Biden's administration would lift any sanctions imposed under Trump that contradict the promise of sanctions relief enshrined in the JCPOA. "The US team has put forward very serious ideas and demonstrated a very serious intent to come back to the compliance," the official said.

Overall, communications from the Iranian side provided some assurances that Iran is also keen to resurrect the agreement, but Tehran's public statements raise questions about its "pragmatic approach," the official said.

The US expects Tehran to make announcements tomorrow that may provide clues to its stance on returning to compliance with curbs on its nuclear program. Iran marks its national nuclear industry day on 10 April.

US sanctions have cut off more than 2mn b/d of Iranian crude exports. Iran's engineers have experience of managing fields under the enforced idleness of sanctions. The country boosted production by 700,000 b/d within a year of signing the JCPOA in 2015, and by another 300,000 b/d a year after that.

By Ben Winkley and Haik Gugarats