VIENNA – The remaining parties to the faltering 2015 Iran nuclear accordmet Wednesday after Tehran announced plans for a new breach of the deal,and as uncertainty reigns ahead of US President-elect Joe Biden’s Januaryinauguration.
The meeting of the so-called “joint commission” included China, France,Russia, Iran, Germany and Britain and was chaired by senior EU foreignaffairs official Helga Schmid.
The meeting, which lasted around two hours, was held virtually because ofthe coronavirus pandemic.
The 2015 deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), hasunravelled steadily since US President Donald Trump withdrew from it in2018 and went on to impose crippling economic sanctions on Iran.
Tehran has retaliated by progressively abandoning limits on its nuclearactivity laid down in the deal, most recently planning to install advancedcentrifuges at Iran’s main nuclear enrichment plant in Natanz.
Last week France, Germany and Britain — collectively known as the “E3” —condemned the plan as “deeply worrying”.
Meanwhile the assassination last month of prominent Iranian nuclearscientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh has heightened tensions in the region, withIran blaming the killing on Israel.
In the wake of Fakhri-zadeh’s death, Iranian MPs passed a bill calling forfurther expansion to Iran’s nuclear programme and an end to inspections ofnuclear facilities by the UN watchdog IAEA.
The Iranian foreign ministry said it did not agree with the bill andPresident Hassan Rouhani has suggested he will not sign it into law.
Rouhani has defied criticism from Iran’s ultra-conservatives to state hisdetermination to seize the “opportunity” presented by the change of USpresident in January.
Rouhani has said Iran is ready to come back into compliance with the dealas soon as other parties fulfil their commitments.
Read Top Stories
President-elect Biden has said he is willing to return to the deal but hasrevealed little else about forthcoming US strategy on the question.
On Wednesday Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Iraniansnot to “trust the enemy”, saying: “Enmities are not limited to Trump’sAmerica and will not end just because he has left office.”
Before the start of Wednesday’s talks, Russia’s ambassador to internationalorganisations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, tweeted that the focus would beon how to “preserve the nuclear deal and ensure its full and balancedimplementation”.
“The role of (the) US in this regard will inevitably be discussed,” headded.
Another diplomat said the Iranians had been told “to comply with the deal,to give space to diplomacy and above all to implement the law” passed bythe Iranian parliament.
The meeting did not come “at the best moment”, the diplomat admitted, giventhe uncertainty over possible developments between now and Biden’s January20 inauguration.
Analyst Ellie Geranm-ayeh of the European Cou-ncil on InternationalRelati-ons said that “the next few weeks are likely to be turbulent on thenuclear file, with proponents of maximum pressure against Iran working hardto spoil chan-ces of diplomacy and stabilisation of the agreement.”
Tensions between Tehran and the West have also been worsened in recent daysby the execution in Iran last week of France-based dissident Ruhollah Zam,which provoked a global outcry.
