The European Trio Strongly Warn About Iran's Nuclear Advances

"If they start getting too close, too close for comfort, then of course we will not be prepared to sit idly by," he told National Public Radio in an interview, according to excerpts released by the US broadcaster. The excerpts of the interview released on Wednesday did not address what he meant by "too close" nor US options in that case.

Indirect talks between the United States and Iran are set to resume in Vienna on Monday with the other members of the 2015 nuclear deal - Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia - shuttling between the two sides because Iranian officials refuse to meet directly with their US counterparts.

Iran has adopted a tougher negotiating position in recent weeks, demanding the US lift sanctions all at once before an agreement is reached in the Vienna talks. It has also demanded guarantees from the Biden Administration that future US governments will not withdraw from an agreement, a proposition the White House cannot deliver on given US constitutional provisions.

US President Joe Biden is trying to revive the 2015 deal, under which Iran agreed to limit its nuclear program in return for relief from US, UN and EU sanctions. Biden's predecessor, Donald Trump, abandoned the agreement in 2018 and reimposed sanctions, prompting Iran to begin violating its nuclear limits by enriching uranium at higher levels.

This has led to alarm in many capitals as it would bring Iran closer to the threshold of nuclear weapons, while multilateral talks are dragged out.

"If they choose not to go back into the deal, then obviously we're going to have to see other efforts - diplomatic and otherwise - to try to address Iran's nuclear ambitions," the US Special Envoy for Iran said in the interview, which was recorded on Tuesday and is scheduled for broadcast on Friday.

A trip by Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to Iran on Tuesday to resolve limitations on monitoring failed. Iran’s refusal to give full access to the UN nuclear watchdog might have a negative impact on the upcoming talks.

Malley said that if Iran chose not to revive compliance with the agreement and instead dragged its feet at the negotiating table and continued to accelerate its nuclear program "we'll have to respond accordingly ... the options that are at America's disposal are, you know, they're familiar to all."

With reporting by Reuters

Grossi’s trip to Iran ended Tuesday with statements from both sides that stressed their commitment to cooperation but left hanging questions raised by the IAEA(International Atomic Energy Agency)over the access of nuclear inspectors and the discovery of uranium traces in three locations undeclared as nuclear sites.

Grossi met both the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Mohammad Eslami, and Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian seeking IAEA access to a manufacturing workshop in Karaj, west of Tehran, to service cameras and monitoring equipment.

Asked by Iran International at a press conference following the board meeting about ambiguous comments from Eslami that the IAEA chief had confirmed in discussions there had been “no violations” in Iran’s nuclear program, Grossi suggested Eslami might have referred to past agency reports confirming it had found no diversion of nuclear material.

Grossi said time for bridging the disagreement over Karaj “is ending” that that the agency was approaching “a point where we are not able to guarantee bring fully informed.”

Grossi has argued that Iran agreed the access under a temporary arrangement in September, whereas Iran argues it is barring access due to a security review in the facility after it was attacked in June, reportedly by a drone.

The disappointment of the IAEA chief’s visit comes days before talks resume in Vienna November 29 to revive Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).

"Despite my best efforts, these extensive negotiations and deliberations to address Iran's outstanding safeguards issues, detailed in the two reports, proved inconclusive," Grossi told the 35-nation board of governors as its quarterly meeting opened Wednesday.

Iran since February has restricted IAEA access more or less to that required under safeguards provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty, but Grossi managed that month to agree on an arrangement allowing a greater level of access, which he said gave the agency a clearer ability to detect any breaches.

While the agency would be expected to monitor a revived JCPOA, it has no direct role in the Vienna talks. Nonetheless, the apparent standoff between Iran and IAEA, both over the Karaj workshop and Iran’s unexplained past nuclear activities, may sour the atmosphere for the talks.

The Vienna negotiations have been suspended since June, but diplomatic and political maneuvering has continued apace, with speculation as to exactly what stance the new Iranian negotiating team will take.

The talks previously struggled to agree which United States sanctions should be lifted for Washington to return to the JCPOA, which previous president Donald Trump left in 2018, and exactly how the Iranian nuclear program, expanded and developed since 2019, would be brought back within JCPOA limits.

While talks in Vienna are formally between remaining JCPOA signatories – China, France, Germany, Iran, Russia, and the United Kingdom – US diplomats take part indirectly.

The IAEA has also told member states that Iran has subjected its inspectors to "excessively invasive searches, which resulted in them feeling intimidated."

The Wall Street Journal cited two diplomats who claimed Grossi had rejected an Iranian offer to allow access to Karaj in return for the agency dropping its questioning of the unexplained uranium traces in Iran’s past nuclear work. The Journal said talks between the IAEA and Iran “continued overnight” but gave no details.

Spokesman Ned Price in his Tuesday briefing insisted that diplomacy remains the preferred path for the Biden Administration to restore the 2015 nuclear agreement known as JCPOA, but Iran needs to show good faith.

Multilateral talks suspended in June are scheduled to resume next week in Vienna, where the United States will participate indirectly in negotiations between Iran and other world powers.

Price said, if the Iranians, “through their actions or through their inactions, demonstrate or suggest that they lack that good faith, that they lack that clarity of purpose, we’ll have to turn to other means. We have a variety of other means. We’re discussing those with our allies and partners. In the category of things that aren’t prudent to discuss from here, that’s one of them.”

Price rejected the suggestion of offering Iran any incentives, or “greasing the wheels”, ahead of an agreement, as Tehran has demanded the release of frozen funds as a sign of US goodwill. “We have been very clear that we are not prepared to take unilateral steps solely for the benefit of greasing the wheel, as you said. We are prepared to engage in a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA,” he maintained.

The spokesman was asked if the Administration is sympathetic to the idea of an interim deal. Reported in the media last week. Price dismissed the idea, insisting that Washington is “sympathetic to testing the proposition as to whether we can achieve a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA.”

Asked how long it would take for the US to determine if the Iranians are negotiating in good faith, Price pointed to the indirect nature of the talks and said the US has to hold “deep consultation” with the participants in the talks, meaning the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, China and EU diplomats.

Price also reiterated the Biden Administration view that the JCPOA “ is the best, it’s the most effective means by which to reapply…permanent and verifiable restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program permanently, preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

At the same time, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo tweeted on Tuesday that the Trump administration “rightly withdrew from the JCPOA, as it provided a clear pathway for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. We kept Iran under max pressure while fostering new relationships among those who partnered with us. Now, the Biden Admin wants to re-enter the JCPOA.”

Hosting Rafael Grossi in Tehran, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Iran had “serious will” for “interaction” with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) “in the framework of the monitoring agreements,” the official news agency IRNA reported.

The foreign minister was apparently referring to both Iran’s cooperation with the IAEA within Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty and a temporary arrangement, made first in February and extended in September, giving nuclear inspectors greater access. IAEA chief Grossi had said Iran has broken the terms of the September agreement by barring the agency from the Karaj plant, west of Tehran, which makes parts for Iran’s nuclear program.

Neither Grossi nor Amir-Abdollahian commented on another IAEA concern, its dissatisfaction over Iran’s explanations on uranium traces found at three sites not declared as nuclear facilities.

Grossi’s visit came shortly ahead of the scheduled resumption of talks in Vienna between Iran and world powers, due November 29, over reviving Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal (the JCPOA, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), under which it limited its atomic program in return for the removal of international sanctions. The Vienna talks have been in abeyance since June.

While the IAEA would monitor Iran’s compliance with a revived JCPOA, Grossi’s more immediate task has been to continue agency inspections at a level he says allows effective monitoring. Tehran reduced IAEA access in February to that required under the NPT while subsequently agreeing a more favorable temporary arrangement.

"The agency is seeking to continue and deepen the dialogue with the government of Iran ... We agreed to continue our joint work on transparency and this will continue," Grossi told a televised news conference.

Amir-Abdollahian said that technical cooperation with the IAEA had “suffered because members of the JCPOA had not clearly acted against attacks on Iran.”

The Karaj facility was reportedly hit June by a drone attack, one among several incidents widely attributed to Israel. Iran has justified barring IAEA inspectors from the site, where they want to service monitoring equipment including cameras, because a review of security is underway.

Iran has long expressed frustration at the failure of European JCPOA signatories − France, Germany and the United Kingdom − to counter the ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions introduced by former United States president Donald Trump when he left the JCPOA in 2018. But since President Joe Biden took office in January, the US and Europe have moved closer together, and Europe has become more outspoken over Tehran’s expansion of its nuclear program beyond JCPOA limits and its restricted co-operation with the IAEA.

The Vienna talks formally involve the remaining JCPOA members – the three European states, Iran, China and Russia. The US takes part indirectly. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Tuesday that Israel would not feel bound by a renewed Iranian nuclear deal.

Lieberman was speaking at a security conference on Tuesday where Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Iran is at the most advanced stage of acquiring nuclear weapons and Israel reserves the right to confront Tehran, with or without a nuclear agreement.

Israel, itself widely believed to have nuclear weapons, has long argued that the 2015 deal was too weak to prevent Iran from pursuing a bomb. Former US President Donald Trump abandoned the deal in 2018, describing it as too soft, and Iran responded by violating some of the deal's restrictions. President Joe Biden's administration aims to revive it.

Israel has also complained that the nuclear agreement does nothing to rein in Iran's ballistic missile program, or hostile activity by Iranian-backed militia.

"The Iranians have encircled the State of Israel with missiles while they sit safely in Tehran," Bennett said. "To chase the terrorist du jour sent by the (Iranian covert) Qods Force does not pay off anymore. We must go for the dispatcher."

Speaking separately, the chief of Israel's air force offered cooperation with Gulf Arab partners against Iranian-made attack drones, a rare public airing of the possibility of joint operations.