WEISSENHAUS: The EU’s foreign policy chief said on Friday that he believed there had been enough progress during consultations between his envoy and Iranian officials in Tehran this week to relaunch nuclear negotiations after two months of deadlock.
Talks to revive Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powershave been on hold since March, chiefly over Tehran’s insistence that Washington remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from the U.S. list of designated terrorist organisations.
Speaking as talks coordinator Enrique Mora arrived back inEurope, Josep Borrell said Iran’s response had been “positiveenough” after Mora had delivered a message that things could not continue as they were.
“These things can not be resolved overnight,” Borrell toldreporters at a G7 foreign ministers meeting in northern Germany.
“Let’s say the negotiations were blocked and they have beende-blocked and that means there is the prospective of reaching a final agreement.”
The broad outline of the deal that aims to revive the accordwhich restrains Iran’s nuclear programme in return for relieffrom economic sanctions was essentially agreed in March.
However, it has since been thrown into disarray afterlast-minute Russian demands and the dispute over the U.S.Foreign Terrorist Organization list.
Western officials are largely losing hope that it can beresurrected, sources familiar with the matter have said, forcing them to weigh how to limit Iran’s atomic programme even as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has divided the big powers.
“It has gone better than expected - the negotiations werestalled, and now they have been reopened,” Borrell said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said Mora’s trip had been “an opportunity to focus on initiatives to resolve the remaining issues”.
“A good and reliable agreement is within reach if the UnitedStates makes a political decision and adheres to itscommitments,” he said.
A French diplomatic source said on Thursday he saw littlechance of the United States agreeing to remove Iran’s elitesecurity force from its list of foreign terrorist organisationsany time soon.
Mora has been in Tehran this week in what has been described as the last chance to salvage the 2015 accord, which then U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from in 2018. Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia are also parties to the accord.
In a bizarre incident, Mora and his team were held atFrankfurt airport for several hours on return from the Iranian capital on Friday.
“We were kept separated. Refusal to give any explanation forwhat seems a violation of the Vienna Convention,” he said onTwitter. Germany authorities did not immediately comment.
Iran’s official IRNA news agency alleged, without evidence,that Israel was behind the incident.
“What has happened in Frankfurt has to do with opposition to the progress in the nuclear talks… The Zionist lobby hasinfluence in the German security apparatus,” it said.
