Diplomats say agreement on JCPOA is close: Update

Adds Russian ambassadors statement on final text in paragraph 2

Indirect negotiations in Vienna between Tehran and Washington aimed at securing a long-awaited revival of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal have made good progress and could reach a positive outcome within days, diplomats participating in the talks said.

Russia's top envoy to the talks, Mikhail Ulyanov, said today a final text on restoration of the deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), has been circulated by EU deputy foreign affairs secretary Enrique Mora.

"The participants in the Vienna talks now need to decide if the draft is acceptable for them," Ulyanov said. "In case of no objection the nuclear deal will be restored."

The Russian envoy had said on 7 August this latest round of negotiations, which began late last week, "are moving in the right direction", and that only an "insignificant" number of sticking points remain.

"Maybe three or four [issues remain]. And even some of those have basically been sorted," he said.

The same day Mora, who has acted as an intermediary between the two sides in many previous rounds, said the discussions were moving forward and that he was "optimistic" they would be able to bring the negotiations to a close "soon".

"We were negotiating some technical questions that were open in the text that was tabled by the [EU] high representative [Josep] Borrell," Mora said. "We are advancing, and I expect that we will close this negotiation soon." He was referring to a draft text put forward by the EU foreign affairs representative in late July aimed at breaking a deadlock in the negotiations since March.

Iran's objections had largely centered on the scope of the sanctions relief it will get under the proposed revived agreement — specifically guarantees that it will get the economic benefits promised under the deal. The US has accused Iran of putting forward demands well beyond the scope of the nuclear deal.

More recently, Tehran has also been insisting that UN nuclear watchdog the IAEA close its ongoing probe into Iran's nuclear activities, specifically traces of nuclear material it found at several undeclared sites.

"The co-operation between Iran and the IAEA continues," Iran's foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on 7 August. But we believe the IAEA should completely resolve the remaining safeguard issues from a technical standpoint by distancing itself from deviant and unconstructive political issues."

Borrell said this latest text under discussion sought to incorporate and address both sides' concerns as comprehensively as possible and described it as "the best possible deal under the given circumstances."

The JCPOA began to fall apart in 2018 after then US president Donald Trump pulled the US out of the deal and reimposed sanctions on Tehran. A year later, Tehran began to gradually ramp up its nuclear activities to levels beyond what is allowed under the deal, bringing it close to a threshold the US says makes it theoretically possible to assemble a functional nuclear weapon. Tehran has repeatedly denied it is pursuing nuclear weapons.

The US sanctions made buying Iranian crude very difficult, and at one point reduced Iran's crude exports to well below 500,000 b/d, from close to 2.4mn b/d previously. Shipments have picked up since the election of US president Joe Biden in November 2020.

Argus estimates that Iran exported around 750,000 b/d over the past three months on average. A restoration of the deal in its original form could realistically add around 1.3mn b/d of Iranian crude to global supply within six to nine months of its implementation.

By Nader Itayim