BRUSSELS – In Vienna, on Tuesday, the signatories to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal will meet with what appears to be a simple task. They want to restore compliance with an agreement that puts tight controls on Iran’s nuclear enrichment to ensure that it cannot build a nuclear weapon in exchange for lifting punitive economic sanctions.
Both Iran and the United States insist that they want to return to the agreement, known as the Joint Global Action Plan, or JCPOA. But nothing about the meeting will be simple.
President Donald J. Trump withdrew the United States from the deal in May 2018, calling it “the worst deal ever negotiated”, and restored and then increased severe economic sanctions against Iran, trying to force it to renegotiate.
Iran responded in part by enriching uranium significantly beyond the limits of the agreement, building more advanced centrifuges and acting more aggressively in support of allies in the Middle East, such as Hezbollah, Hamas, Shi’ite militias in Iraq and the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad .
So returning to an agreement made six years ago is likely to be more difficult than many people realize.
What are the conversations about?
The Vienna negotiations are aimed at creating a roadmap for a synchronized return from Iran and the United States to the fulfillment of the 2015 agreement. It is in danger of collapse since Trump repudiated American participation.
The agreement was the result of years of negotiations with Iran. Under the presidency of the European Union, Britain, France and Germany made the first openings to Iran, accompanied by other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council: Russia, China and U.S.
But it was only when the United States began secret talks with Iran under President Barack Obama and agreed that Iran could enrich uranium, albeit under safeguards, that a breakthrough occurred. Even so, the deal was widely criticized as too weak by many in Congress and by Israel, who saw Iran’s possible reach for a nuclear weapon – an aspiration Iran has always denied – as an existential threat.
Europeans tried to keep the deal alive, but were unable to provide Iran with the economic benefits due after Trump restored American sanctions that had been lifted under the terms of the deal. American sanctions, based on the global power of the dollar and the American banking system, have prevented European and other companies from doing business with Iran, and Trump has stepped up the pressure by adding many more sanctions.
Iran responded in several ways, including attacks on American ships and allies in Iraq, but more importantly, by restarting uranium enrichment at a higher level and with the centrifuges banned under the agreement. The estimated time it would take Iran to produce enough enriched uranium to produce a nuclear weapon has shrunk by one year, which was what the agreement wanted to preserve, for just a few months. Iran is also making metallic uranium necessary for a warhead, also banned under the agreement, and is aggressively supporting allies in the Middle East, including many that the West considers terrorist groups.
In another pressure tactic, Iran interpreted the agreement’s inspection requirements strictly and refused to answer questions from the International Atomic Energy Agency about radioactive particles that inspectors found in locations that were never declared by Tehran as part of the program. nuclear. Iran agreed in late February to continue recording information about its inspection equipment for three months, but without granting access to the IAEA. If economic sanctions are not lifted during this period, Iran says, the information will be excluded, leaving the world in the dark about the main parts of the nuclear program.
Iran insists it can get back to the agreement quickly, but wants the United States to do it first. The Biden government says it wants Iran to go first.
What are the obstacles?
Trust is a big problem. The Iranian regime was established by a revolution more than four decades ago that replaced the American-backed shah of Iran with a complicated government overseen by clergy and the strong hand of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The ayatollah only reluctantly agreed to the 2015 agreement with America’s “Great Satan”. After Trump left, Khamenei’s distrust only increased.
Trump has also imposed many economic sanctions on Iran, in addition to those originally lifted by the deal, attempting “maximum pressure” to force Iran to negotiate much stricter terms. Iranian officials now say that up to 1,600 U.S. sanctions should be lifted, about half of them imposed by Trump. Some target terrorism and human rights violations, not nuclear issues. Removing some of them would create opposition in Congress.
Many in Washington, much less in Israel and Europe, also do not believe Iran’s claims that it never sought a nuclear weapon and never would.
Further complicating the restoration of the agreement are “expiry” clauses, or time limits, that would allow Iran to resume certain nuclear enrichment activities. The Biden government wants more negotiations with Iran to extend these time limits, as well as to place limits on the Iranian missile program and other activities.
Iran says it simply wants the United States to return to the agreement it left, including lifting sanctions, before it comes back as well. So far, it has rejected any future negotiations.
Even under the Islamic regime, Iran also has politics. There are presidential elections in June, with candidates approved by the clergy. The current president, Hassan Rouhani, who cannot run for another term, and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, are considered relatively moderate and have negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal. But powerful forces in Iran have opposed the deal, including the Corps of Islamic Revolutionary Guards. Moderates hope that rapid progress in lifting economic sanctions will help them in the presidential election; The hardliners are expected to oppose any swift agreement in Vienna that could benefit moderates.
Iran has lived with harsh Trump sanctions for three years and has survived popular discontent and even protests, and the hardliners will argue that another six months is unlikely to make a difference.
How will the lectures be structured?
The meeting of senior diplomats is formally a session of the Joint Commission on business, convened by the European Union as president. As the United States has come out of the agreement, its representatives will not be in the room, but somewhere nearby. Diplomats from Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and Iran will meet, with a European Union chair, and start discussing how to revitalize the agreement.
Iran refuses to meet face-to-face with American diplomats. Thus, Europeans suggest that they will meet the Americans with proposals or that the Iranians will leave the room before the Americans enter. This process of indirect conversations can take time.
But European diplomats say that after a few days, the position will be left in Vienna for working groups on complicated political and technical issues. If an approximate agreement can be reached on a synchronized return to compliance, the authorities in Iran and the United States are expected to meet to finalize the details.
What is the prospect of success?
Negotiations can take a long time, and some in Washington expect at least a principle agreement in the coming months that will bind any new Iranian government after the June elections.
But some European diplomats fear that a long time has passed and that the agreement is effectively dead, and will essentially serve as a point of reference for what could be a fundamentally new negotiation.
Therefore, the timetable is not clear, as well as the prospect of success.