Iran nuclear talks set to resume

• Iran talks resume with world powers after a five-month hiatus.
• The United States is to resume indirect negotiations with Iran in Vienna.
• But is far less optimistic than in the spring about the possibility of saving the Iranian nuclear deal.

Talks Resume

• Talks between world powers and Iran on salvaging the 2015 nuclear deal will resume in Vienna after a five-month hiatus, but expectations of a breakthrough are low.
• The talks between the remaining partners to the deal — Iran, China, Russia, Germany, France and the U.K. —will restart.
• The U.S. will also send a delegation, headed by Washington’s Special Envoy for Iran, which will participate in the talks indirectly.
• The talks could liberate Iran from hundreds of western economic sanctions or lead to a tightening of the economic noose and the intensified threat of military attacks by Israel.
• The scale of Iran’s negotiating demands, ideological outlook of Iran’s new administration and western fears that Iran is covertly boosting its nuclear programme has created a sense of pessimism.
• Lifting economic sanctions remains a popular objective inside Iran, but the current regime have done little to prepare the nation politically for the compromises that might be necessary.
• Iran has long emphasised that it expects Washington to remove all sanctions that are “related to the nuclear deal”, including 1,500 individual sanctions.
• Joe Biden has offered to take the US back into the nuclear deal that Donald Trump left in 2018.
• Iran and the US are in dispute over the precise US sanctions that must be lifted.
• The new Iranian regime play new cards: including a demand for financial compensation from America for previous sanctions, and for a guarantee that America will not leave the agreement again.
• The west regards both demands as unrealistic, and if seriously pursued in Vienna, the talks are doomed to failure.

JCPOA

• The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is a detailed agreement with five annexes reached by Iran and the P5+1 (China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States).
• The nuclear deal was endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2231.
• Iran’s compliance with the nuclear-related provisions of the JCPOA is verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) according to certain requirements set forth in the agreement.
• Under the accord, Iran agreed to limit its sensitive nuclear activities and allow in international inspectors in return for the lifting of crippling economic sanctions.
• Nuclear restrictions: Iran agreed not to produce either the highly enriched uranium or the plutonium that could be used in a nuclear weapon.
• The IAEA has issued quarterly reports to its board of governors and the UN Security Council on Iran’s implementation of its nuclear commitments.
• The agreement got off to a fairly smooth start. The IAEA certified in early 2016 that Iran had met its preliminary pledges.
• The deal has been near collapse since President Trump withdrew the United States from it in 2018 and reinstated devastating banking and oil sanctions.
• Iran accused the United States of reneging on its commitments, and faulted Europe for submitting to U.S. unilateralism.