Iran agrees to restart nuclear talks next month

Iran will return to the Vienna nuclear negotiations in November following "constructive" talks with the EU in Brussels today.

Iran's deputy foreign minister Ali Baqeri-Kani said he discussed "the essential elements of successful negotiations" with the EU's deputy foreign affairs secretary Enrique Mora. "We have agreed to start negotiations by the end of November. An exact date will be announced next week," he said.

Baqeri-Kani travelled to the Belgian capital to continue discussions that began in Tehran two weeks ago about the state of the Vienna negotiations, which were suspended in late June shortly after the election of Iran's president Ebrahim Raisi. The Vienna talks had been aimed at securing an agreement from both Iran and the US to return to full compliance with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Iran began gradually ramping up its nuclear activities beyond the limits allowed under the JCPOA in 2019, in response to then US president Donald Trump's decision to exit the deal in 2018 and reimpose sanctions that at one point removed close to 2mn b/d of Iran's crude and condensate from the market.

Iran and its original JCPOA partners — the UK, France, Germany, Russia, China and the US — began the Vienna talks in April while Raisi's predecessor Hassan Rohani was still in power, and they appeared to make key inroads. But the change of government in Tehran brought with it a stalling of the talks, with the Raisi administration saying it needed time to take stock of how the negotiations have progressed so far.

'Beautiful' talk

Iran's JCPOA partners have for months been urging Tehran to return to the negotiating without delay in order to build on the progress made, with some diplomats warning that they would not be prepared to wait forever. "We continue to believe the window for diplomacy remains open," US State Department spokesman Ned Price said. "But that is not a window that will be open indefinitely."

Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said earlier today that Tehran wanted to be sure that the talks will be conducted in a "results-oriented way" before committing to a timetable. He also reiterated that Iran remains keen on a full and mutual return to the deal by all parties, but only if it is given assurances that it will get all the benefits promised to it under the original agreement. Tehran feels that although many US and European sanctions were lifted in 2016 when the original JCPOA was implemented, the US and the European signatories fell well short of delivering on their pledges, particularly promises of investment in Iran.

"We are not very eager about just a mere return to the deal ... what matters more is the result of such a return," Amir-Abdollahian said. "Will we see the full lifting of sanctions or will it just create new restrictions? ... it is more important to come up with results than speak in a beautiful manner."

By Nader Itayim