Iran, World Powers Kick Off 8th Round Of Vienna Talks

In his weekly reporters’ briefing Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said Iran could not tolerate participants in Vienna wasting time by making demands beyond the 2015 nuclear agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).

Khatibzadeh also dismissed recent warnings by the United States and its European allies that time was running out to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA. He said Tehran will not be moved by “manufactured deadlines”.

Khatibzadeh said talks should focus on the new draft of two documents discussed during the latest round of talks, one on the nuclear issues and one on the verifiable removal of sanctions.

The spokesman called on participants to “appreciate this window of opportunity” and agree during the current round of talks on how to revive the JCPOA, which the United States left in 2018.

The talks are formally between remaining JCPOA members – China, France, Germany, Iran, Russia, and the United Kingdom – with the US taking part indirectly. Formally, the three western European states, known as the ‘E3,’ have called on the US to withdraw sanctions incompatible with the JCPOA and on Iran to return its nuclear program, expanded since 2019, to JCPOA limits.

Khatibzadeh said Iran was exchanging texts with the US delegation through Enrique Mora, the senior European Union official coordinating the Vienna process. This was important, the spokesman said, to establish procedures lifting US sanctions imposed since 2018, and precluding the US once again leaving the JCPOA once it rejoined.

Khatibzadeh echoed remarks by other Iranian officials that Iran needed guarantees from Washington that it would receive the benefits of the agreement.

Earlier in the day, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said the current round of talks would discuss a new document "mutually acceptable" to all sides. “One of the crucial matters in these negotiations is the issue of guarantees and verification,” he said.

It was unclear what document Amir-Abdollahian was referring to: Iran submitted written proposals at the beginning of December, and reportedly various understandings were reached and drafts discussed when talks were suspended in June pending Iran’s presidential election.

Khatibzadeh made his remarks as Iran’s top negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani met representatives of Russia and China in Vienna ahead of the official start of this round of talks.

“We have put aside the June 2021 document, and negotiations on a joint document will commence as of today,” Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told reporters on the side-lines of a conference in Tehran. He described the new document as "mutually acceptable" and that it included issues related to both the Iran’s nuclear program and sanctions.

There has been speculation over the status of written proposals submitted by Iran at the beginning of December and how these might relate to discussions in Vienna that were suspended in June pending the Iranian presidential election and transition. Some Western diplomats have insisted that a draft from June remained the basis on which negotiators had to continue talks on restoring the 2015 agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).

Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s lead negotiator in the talks, tweeted Sunday, reacting to Iranian journalist Abas Aslani that “having agreed on modality and agenda…we’ll now enter discussions on content,” that “to the best of my knowledge all the other participants in the Vienna talks on JCPOA proceed from similar understandings.”

Ulyanov also tweeted a timeline showing the effect of the US 2018 decision to leave the JCPOA and impose ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions on Iran, as “one day to destroy what took years to build & to cause more years of damage control.”

Amir-Abdollahian emphasized the importance to Iran of “guarantees and verification,” which he said would be on the agenda. The foreign minister stressed Iran needed to know it would be able to sell oil and receive payments in foreign currencies, which had been blocked under ‘maximum pressure’ US sanctions threating punitive actions against third parties. "We should be able to enjoy all the economic benefits [of the JCPOA] in various sectors,” Amir-Abdollahian said.

Stressing that Iranian negotiators would remain in the Austrian capital as long as required, a source close to the Iranian negotiation team told the official news agency IRNA Sunday that the previous round of talks had been focused on "general issues" whereas the eighth round would center on the contents of a potential agreement. "Now it's the opposite sides' turn to show their good will on the matter of the sanctions, progress in the future round hinges on the approach adopted by the other parties,” the source said.

In apparent reference to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House Iran envoy Robert Malley's warnings last week that time was running out to renew the JCPOA, the source said Iranian negotiators would not accept "factitious deadlines” and that Iran felt “no urgency” in concluding the talks.

Malley told CNN December 21 that “we have some weeks left but not much more than that." Asked if Iran was “playing for time,” he replied: "If it's their plan, I strongly urge them to revisit it."

Malley claimed Iran was “nearing the capability” to develop a nuclear weapon through expanding its nuclear program, referring to steps taken since 2019, the year after the US quit the JCPOA. Malley said that within weeks there would be no deal to be revived and "a period of escalating crisis" would follow.

Blinken spoke Tuesday of a window rapidly closing. "It's getting very, very short,” he said. “Being able to recover full benefits of JCPOA, by [presumably Tehran] returning to compliance with it, is getting increasingly problematic by advances that Iran makes every single day in its nuclear program."

Chief negotiator Ali Bagheri-Kani and his accompanying delegation will soon go to Palais Coburg to hold diplomatic consultations ahead of a meeting of the JCPOA Joint Commission.

During the fresh round of talks that will kick off Monday afternoon, the sides are expected to discuss the contents of a new text and the possible roadmap for revival of the July 2015 nuclear deal.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Monday morning that this round of talks will focus on a new joint draft, adding, “Today we have an acceptable joint document on the table”.

He noted that the most important issue in the new document is achieving proper guaranties that Iran can sell its oil easily and without any restrictions as well as receiving the proceeds in foreign currency in Iranian banks.

In addition to US sanctions on Iran’s oil exports, there are also banking sanctions that have cut off most of Tehran’s financial ties with the world.

Bagheri-Kani said earlier that if the other sides accept the Islamic Republic’s demands, the eighth round could be the final round.

Many Iranian pundits have expressed doubt about the success of this round in achieving tangible results.

Ebrahim Mottaqi, an academic and political commentator in Tehran, has said that another round of talks in the last week of December is unlikely to be a turning point in Iran's nuclear negotiations with world powers.

Motaqqi said diplomacy is less likely to bear fruit during the final days of the year although it appears that Iranian, European, Russian, Chinese and American delegates have enough motivation to continue their efforts.

Meanwhile, according to Mottaqi in an interview with Fararu news website, the President Ebrahim Raisi Administration is adamant to further the talks in a way that would have a positive impact on Iran’s economy. However, he says, although Iran seems to have the necessary willpower to pursue the talks, it is unlikely that the negotiations could lead to tangible results in the short run.

According to Mottaqi, what Iran wants in the negotiations is to have the US sanctions lifted, and to make sure that the danger of another US pull-out from the nuclear deal is minimized.

Meanwhile, US-based former Iranian diplomat Hossein Mousavian has saidin an article that "Iran's strategic patience has come to an end and the United States can no longer play with time to get non-nuclear concessions from Iran."

Iranian official news agency IRNA quoted Mousavian's article in the Journal of the Russian Academy of Science as saying that although everyone expected President Joe Biden to break the deadlock in relations between Iran and America by returning to the 2015 nuclear deal, it turned out that his plan was to continue President Donald Trump's ‘maximum pressure’ policy.

This is similar to what Tehran has been demanding all along, that Washington should first lift its sanctions and then negotiate – albeit without leverage.

Iran's former ambassador to Germany, Ali Majedi, on the other hand, believes that the new round of talks in Vienna is going to have a determining impact on the fate of the negotiations. However, Majedi stressed that the talks have a better chance to succeed if instead of the 4+1 Iran agrees to hold the meetings with the P5+1, that is the three European states, Russia, China, plus the United States, which is currently indirectly involved in the talks through European mediators.

State-controlled media in recent days have been launching scathing attacks on the three European parties to the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA) accusing them of “sabotaging the negotiations. Clearly Tehran is unhappy that Europeans have been demanding Iran show more willingness to compromise. Majedi in his interview with Khabar Online website in Tehran followed the same argument but said that Europe can still play a positive part in the talks. However, he agreed with other commentators that even Germany has not been playing “a positive part” in the latest round of talks.

Majedi stressed that at the time being, it is not clear whether the Western sides wish to return to the 2015 agreement, or they want to add some new items to the JCPOA.

Asked about the divide between Europe and the United States under President Trump, Majedi pointed out that Democratic administrations in the United States usually maintain better ties with Europe and this will also affect the fate of the Vienna negotiations.

"We had talks with Rosatom and we hope that as part of our cooperation, based on the plans and contracts we will sign, we will be able to do this and start using Iranian fuel in the reactor in Bushehr", Mohammad Eslami was quoted Saturday by Russia's state-owned Sputnik as saying.

The United States had expressed reservations about Russia building the Bushehr nuclear power plant but finally relented in late 2000s, saying that as long as Russia controls the fuel it did not see the project as a proliferation risk.

It is not clear what the US reaction would be if Iran starts using domestic fuel.

Russia was also responsible to take away the spent fuel and it is not clear that if Iran supplies the uranium fuel it would still be willing to send the spent fuel to Russia.

Iran is not known to have built facilities that would be able to separate plutonium from spent reactor fuel. Moscow and Tehran have an agreement to send back the spent fuel from the Bushehr plant to Russia. Russia last supplied fuel for the reactor in April 2020.

Eslami’s statement comes amid sensitive nuclear negotiations in Vienna to restore Iran’s 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers, known as JCPOA, which was meant to limit Tehran’s nuclear program. Although the Bushehr plant had nothing to do with that agreement, Iran’s plan to replace Russian fuel with domestic uranium can inject a new element in Western calculations.

Rosatom, Russia's State Atomic Energy Corporation, carried out most of the construction of the first reactor of Bushehr and has provided the reactor's fuel under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) since it began operating in 2011. The company is now constructing a second reactor at the site and has signed a contract to construct a third power unit.

Pointing out that the construction of the second and third power units of the Bushehr power plant is around 23 months behind schedule, Eslami said Iran is expecting Rosatom to speed up the project's implementation and make compensation for its delay.

Construction began in 2017 on the two new nuclear reactors, due for completion in 2024 and 2026, at Bushehr with a projected combined capacity of 2,100 MW. The work follows a 2014 agreement between Iran and Rosatom.

Eslami was also asked by Sputnik Friday whether Iran will continue to enrich uranium beyond 60 percent if the country does not return to the 2015 nuclear deal and sanctions are not lifted, to which he replied "no."

With electricity generation at around 50,000-56,000 MW in the past few years, rising no more than 2,000 MW a year, Iran has struggled to meet consumption that has been rising and is encouraged by subsidized prices.

Bushehr nuclear power plant was connected to Iran's national power grid in September 2011. During a visit on 2 October to Bushehr, in southern Iran, President Raisi (Raeesi) said the current 1,000-megawatt (MW) capacity of Iran’s sole nuclear power plant would be tripled with further development, and that the AEIO was committed to increasing production from nuclear power to 10,000 MW.

With an annual average of 300 sunny days in over two-thirds of the country Iran has great potential for solar energy, but renewables including hydro-power account for 7 percent of Iran’s energy generation compared to 90 percent from natural gas and dirty oil fuels.