WASHINGTON – The United States took a big step on Thursday to restore the nuclear deal with Iran that the Trump administration abandoned, offering to join European nations in what would be the first substantial diplomacy with Tehran in more than four years. , Biden government officials said.
In a series of actions aimed at fulfilling one of President Biden’s most significant campaign promises, the government backed down from a Trump administration effort to restore United Nations sanctions on Iran. This effort separated Washington from its European allies.
And at the same time, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told European foreign ministers in a call on Thursday morning that the United States would join them in seeking to restore the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. , which he said “was a fundamental achievement of multilateral diplomacy. “
Hours later, Enrique Mora, the European Union’s deputy general secretary for political affairs, appealed to the original signatories to the nuclear deal to save it from “a critical moment”.
“Intense conversations with all participants and the US,” Mr. Mora said on Twitter. “I am ready to invite you to an informal meeting to discuss the way forward.”
But it was not clear whether the Iranians would agree. The first obstacle to restoring the business can be a politically delicate dance of whoever goes first. And the Biden government has other goals that include extending and deepening the agreement in an effort to curb Iran’s growing missile capabilities and its continued support for terrorist groups and the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad.
Biden said he would lift sanctions imposed by President Donald J. Trump only if Iran returns to the limits of nuclear production it observed until 2019.
According to the original 2015 agreement, Iran dispatched 97% of its nuclear fuel outside the country and agreed to set strict limits on new production that would basically guarantee that it would take a year or more to produce enough material for a single weapon. In return, world powers lifted international sanctions that had smothered the Iranian economy. But when he took office, Trump unilaterally restored American sanctions, arguing that the deal was flawed.
Iran said the United States was the first to violate the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal and would only comply with them after the United States reversed its course and allowed oil sales and banking operations worldwide. A senior Biden government official said on Thursday night that closing that gap would be a “painstaking” process.
The announcement will open what is likely to be a delicate set of diplomatic offers. A State Department official said the United States had no indication whether Iran would accept the offer and warned that the prospect of a meeting was the first step in what would be a long and difficult process to restore the nuclear deal.
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The offer comes days before Sunday’s deadline, when Iran said it would ban international inspectors from visiting undeclared nuclear facilities and conduct unannounced inspections of nuclear facilities if the United States does not lift sanctions imposed by the Trump administration.
These inspections, ordered by the nuclear agreement, are crucial to the international community’s understanding of Iran’s progress towards its ability to produce weapons. The State Department official said Thursday’s offer to meet was not specifically aimed at preventing Iran from taking that step because the United States would not offer a concession to prevent an action that Iran has no reason to take. first of all.
The official also did not offer details on what proposals the United States could make at the initial meetings with Iran and the Europeans.
The dispute over who moves first will only be the first of many obstacles. And with the presidential election of just four months in Iran, it was unclear whether the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the country’s political and military leadership would fully support re-engagement with the United States.
A second senior Biden official said the talks would take place if other world powers, including China and Russia, were part of them. This left open the question of whether the regional powers that were excluded in the last agreement – Saudi Arabia, Israel and the United Arab Emirates – would play a role.
The State Department said Iran must return to full compliance with the agreement – as the Biden government insisted – before the United States cancels a series of American economic sanctions that Trump has imposed on Tehran, paralyzing the Iranian economy.
So far, and as a gesture of goodwill, the Biden government has withdrawn last fall’s demand that the United Nations Security Council apply international sanctions against Iran for violating the original 2015 agreement that limited its nuclear program.
Almost all other nations rejected the Trump administration’s insistence that the United States could invoke so-called immediate sanctions because they were no longer part of the agreement.
In addition, the Biden government is lifting travel restrictions for Iranian officials intending to enter the United States to attend UN meetings, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity before the actions were announced.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, said on Twitter that Tehran was waiting for American and European officials to “demand an end to Trump’s legacy of #EconomicTerrorism against Iran”.
“We will follow ACTION with action,” tweeted Zarif.
Asked whether the United States has had any preliminary diplomatic communication with Iran, the State Department official did not respond specifically, saying only that the government had consulted widely on the matter.
European officials, who more than a year ago formally accused Tehran of violating the agreement by compiling and enriching nuclear fuel beyond the limits of the agreement, were largely left alone. In the hope that the agreement will be restored as soon as Trump leaves office, officials in Britain, France and Germany have postponed the application of a dispute mechanism to punish Iran for repeatedly violating the agreement since then.