US Says Iran Nuclear Talks 'Not Going Well' As It Expresses Alarm

Enrique Mora, the senior European Union official chairing formal meetings, told reporters he hoped talks would resume by the end of the year. "We don't have months, we rather have weeks to have an agreement,” he said.

Mora said that written proposals submitted this month by Iran had been incorporated into negotiations, which in seven rounds of talks since April have discussed reviving Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).

“We are in a situation both in sanctions and nuclear, where difficult political decisions have to be taken,” Mora said. “It's going to be politically painful sometimes. And we don't have much time. So ... my plea, my call is for delegations to establish clear priorities, to come with an open and realistic situation of what can be achieved, and go for it."

The three JCPOA western European JCPOA signatories – France, Germany and the United Kingdom – issued a downbeat statement. "We hope that Iran is in a position to resume the talks quickly, and to engage constructively so that talks can move at a faster pace,” it read. “We are rapidly reaching the end of the road for this negotiation.”

While United States ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions, imposed on Iran when the US left the JCPOA in 2018, remain at the crux of the Vienna talks, Tehran has increasingly directed criticism at the ‘E3,’ who they feel have moved closer to the US in recent months.

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Friday that the talks in Vienna were “not going well,” and that Washington had communicated its “alarm” through the Europeans over Iran’s expanding nuclear program.

The official Iranian news agency IRNA suggested Friday that France in particular was playing a negative role, and that the E3 had coordinated with Israel, which was recently reported to have allocated $1.5 billion for a military attack on Iran and has been lobbying in Washington for a tougher approach.

Missing data

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Friday that data from an agency camera at Iran’s Karaj manufacturing site was missing. The camera was damaged in a drone attack in June widely blamed on Israel, and was one of several removed by Iran from the site. While Iran is not required to allow IAEA access under its safeguards agreement, the agency regards monitoring Karaj, which makes equipment for uranium enrichment, as important to assessing Iran’s program.

Iran and the IAEA agreed Wednesday that the agency would reinstall cameras as the site, although the IAEA would not receive the footage until agreement is reached in Vienna and the greater access required by the JCPOA restored.

The central challenge in the Vienna talks since they began in April is agreeing how Iran’s nuclear program, expanded and improved since 2019, can be returned to JCPOA limits, and exactly which US sanctions contravene the JCPOA and should be lifted as Washington returns to the deal.

The formal talks in Vienna involve the remaining JCPOA signatories – China, France, Germany, Iran, Russia and the United Kingdom – with the US taking part indirectly. China's chief negotiator, Wan Qun, said Friday he hoped talks would resume before the end of the year.

IRNA quoted an “informed source” in Vienna as saying that the United Kingdom, France and Germany (E3) have adopted a negative stance to the extent that even the United States is unhappy. The source claimed that the E3 are working to sabotage a restoration of the 2015 nuclear agreement, JCPOA.

The three European allies of the United States had criticized Tehran earlier in the week, saying so far in December no serious negotiations have taken place and time for restoring JCPOA is fast running out.

IRNA further claimed that France is particularly playing a negative role, including leaking negative information about the talks. It added that the E3 are coordinating their position in the negotiations with Israel and the two sides had discussion and mutual visits to chart the failure of the Vienna negotiations. IRNA said that the UK even wants a new agreement to replace JCPOA.

After a five-month break in the talks, Iran returned to the negotiating table on November 29, putting forth new demands and refusing to continue talks based on previous understandings.

Iran has not produced the footage, Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Friday.

The issue was not addressed by an agreement between Iran and the IAEA on Wednesday that allowed the IAEA re-install cameras at the Karaj workshop that Iran removed after the apparent attack, which Tehran blames on Israel.

Iran had since refused the IAEA access to replace cameras damaged in the incident, part of an ongoing hardline tact taken by Tehran at negotiations underway in Vienna over its tattered 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

The new agreement this week should end a months-long standoff over IAEA access there.

In response to a question by Iran International Grossi said that Iran's request to check new cameras before installation is not something new and other countries also routinely do that.

Grossi also indicated that there was no opposition from the United States to his organization's latest agreement with Iran.

Iran says one of four IAEA cameras at the Karaj facility producing uranium enrichment machines was destroyed in the June incident. Iran removed all four cameras and showed them to the IAEA, but the destroyed camera's data storage device was not included. The IAEA and Western powers have been asking Iran to explain, unsuccessfully so far.

"We have doubts about that and this is why we are asking, 'Where is it?’" Grossi told a news conference when asked if it was credible that the footage simply vanished.

"I am hopeful that they are going to come up with an answer because it's very strange that it disappears."

The agreement on Karaj avoided a diplomatic escalation that threatened to scupper wider talks on rescuing the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA).

Talks between Iran and world powers since April to bring both the United States and Iran back to compliance with JCPOA have so far failed to produce a result. The US withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and Iran responded by increasing uranium enrichment.

The cameras are aimed at verifying Iran is not secretly siphoning off the parts for uranium-enriching centrifuges that are made there, but the footage will remain under seal in Iran, so the IAEA cannot view it for now, as has been the case at various locations since February.

The IAEA has not been able to verify whether Karaj has resumed operations, but Grossi said "it would be a logical conclusion" that advanced centrifuges recently installed at Fordow, a site buried inside a mountain, came from there.

With reporting by Reuters and AP

Iranian State TV Chief Payman Jebelli on Thursday appointed hardline commentator Vahid Jalili as his deputy in charge of cultural programming with a separate mandate as the official to introduce "change" in the state TV.

Vahid Jalili is the brother of Saeed Jalili, former nuclear negotiator in ex-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s administration and a staunch critic of JCPOA.

During the past few days Iranian media speculated that the development could mean Saeed Jalili’s influence is expanding in President Ebrahim Raisi’s government, and given his past record as a bombastic negotiator, this will not bode well for current nuclear talks in Vienna.

The Iranian Students News Agency ISNA, which broke the news about the appointment on Thursday, revealed that Vahid Jalili is not just any deputy chief. Jebelli officially appointed him as Acting Director of the Islamic Republic of Iran broadcasting Organization IRIB) while praising his "capabilities and long experience in the area of revolutionary art."

Moderate news website Rouydad 24, is one of the Iranian media outlets that has said the development will inevitably put Saeed Jalili in a better position to impose his ideas on Iran’s nuclear negotiators, particularly his former deputy Ali Bagheri-Kani who is now Iran's chief envoy in the talks.

Although Vahid Jalili is not officially in charge of programming in the state TV as was earlier speculated, still his mandate includes "Promoting the quality of programs to make them compliant with the ideas of the Supreme Leader" who believes "TV programming is one of the battlefronts of soft war."

ISNA reminded its readers that Vahid Jalili's background include publishing ‘revolutionary’ material and founding the Research Institute for the Cultural Front of the Revolution. This possibly means he would toughen Iran's only broadcaster's position on the nuclear negotiations.

According to Rouydad24, a political current in Iran is trying to obstruct the negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear deal while some Iranian commentators hope the new round of talks that started last week would prove fruitful, as Iran agreed to allow the UN nuclear watchdog, IAEA, to reinstall cameras at a nuclear site near Tehran.

Clearly referring to the time when Saeed Jalili and Bagheri-Kani were in charge of the negotiations in early 2010s, Rouydad24 charged that this is the same faction which steered nuclear negotiations for eight years during Ahmadinejad's presidency without any tangible outcome. Not only they did not reach an agreement with world powers, but their bombastic approach resulted in several UN Security Council resolutions against Iran.

The same team's nuclear chief Fereydoun Abbasi this week told Rouydad24 that "It is now the best time for Iran to leave the JCPOA for good."

Meanwhile, Amir Hossein Sabeti a political activist close to the Jallii brothers wrote on Twitter: "It is unlikely that the United States would enter into a good agreement with Iran after several years of enmity. It is more likely that not reaching an agreement would secure Iran's interests rather than an agreement." He added that the rise and fall of the rate of exchange has nothing to do with Jalili and Bagheri's men and only Raisi's economic ministers should be accountable for that.

Bagheri has said several times since the start of the nuclear talks that Iran is not taking part in "nuclear negotiations" with the West and that the Iranian team’s only objective is to have the sanctions lifted.

In November 2017, ISNA wrote that Jalili has been going around delivering speeches against the JCPOA at various universities. According to ISNA, the highlight of Jalili's speeches was that "The JCPOA has had no benefit for us and has only imposed a high cost on Iran."

The indirect US-Iran talks on bringing both back into full compliance with the deal are in their seventh round. One of the diplomats said they were due to resume on Dec. 27, while another gave a time frame between Christmas and the New Year.

Under the agreement, Iran had limited its nuclear program in return for relief from US, European Union and United Nations economic sanctions.

Then-President Donald Trump, a Republican, pulled the United States out of the accord in 2018 and reimposed US sanctions, prompting Iran to begin violating its nuclear restrictions in 2019.

Democrat Joe Biden, has sought to revive the deal via indirect talks in which officials from other parties - Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, as well as the European Union - shuttle between US and Iranian diplomats because Tehran refuses to meet directly.

Britain, France and Germany have sounded pessimistic about resuscitating the agreement, saying on Tuesday "we are rapidly reaching the end of the road" to save it as Tehran accused Western powers of engaging in a "blame game."

Reuters Report