Top Negotiator in Moscow for Consultations on Nuclear Talks

Iran’s top negotiator in talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, Ali Baqeri Kani, traveled to Moscow on Friday to hold discussions with Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, following the first round of Tehran’s proximity discussions with the United States in Doha, Qatar. 
The meeting was also attended by Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s representative in the nuclear talks, the Russian mission in Vienna said on Twitter. 
“It was a very professional exchange of views on the current situation around the #JCPOA and prospects of the #ViennaTalks,” Ulyanov tweeted. 
He used the abbreviation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, formal name of the nuclear deal which offered sanctions relief to Tehran in return for curbs on its nuclear activity. 
The landmark agreement has been in jeopardy since the US pulled out and reimposed tough sanctions that prompted Tehran to row back on its commitments. 
Talks in Vienna, Austria, began in April 2021 to work out how both parties can resume compliance, but reached a deadlock in March over a few remaining differences between Tehran and Washington. 
The European Union eventually arranged indirect talks in a trilateral format in Doha to help address the remaining disputes so that all parties could return to Vienna to conclude a deal. 
One source briefed on the negotiations said the talks focused on oil sanctions, Iran’s access to funds blocked in South Korea, sanctions on airlines and penalties targeting Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, according to Bloomberg.
The two-day negotiations, however, ended on Wednesday, June 29, with meager progress. 
Iran described the talks as “serious and positive” and said it is ready to engage constructively in the next stages. 
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Iran will continue efforts to have the sanctions removed with “strength and logic.”
“America’s realism and receiving durable guarantees of Iran’s full economic benefit from the agreement can render the negotiations fruitful,” he tweeted. 
The Russian diplomat also said the success of negotiations depends on the US behavior.
“My assessment: despite all the difficulties, the nuclear deal still can be restored. For this to happen the US should demonstrate greater flexibility,” Ulyanov said in his tweet. 

Greater Urgency

The EU coordinator said the negotiations did not achieve the progress they had hoped for, adding they would keep working with even greater urgency to bring a key deal back on track. 
Some sources have suggested that the Doha talks are likely to resume following US President Joe Biden’s visit to the region this month. 
Persian Gulf nations are being encouraged to play a more active role as the EU’s role as mediator reaches its limit, according to the European diplomats.
Speaking at the UN Security Council, US, British and French diplomats all placed the onus on Iran for the failure to revive the agreement after more than a year of negotiations.
American officials have offered an extremely pessimistic view, saying the chances of reviving the JCPOA are worse after Doha talks and will be getting worse by the day.
They accused Iran of raising issues that were either outside the scope of the JCPOA, or already debated and resolved in a thorough manner in Vienna. 
Tehran, on the other hand, blamed the US for the lack of progress by failing to provide guarantees for Iran’s full and continued benefit from the JCPOA. 
“Iran has demanded verifiable and objective guarantees from the US that JCPOA will not be torpedoed again, that the US will not violate its obligations again, and that sanctions will not be re-imposed under other pretexts or designations,” Iran’s UN Ambassador Majid Takht-Ravanchi told the Security Council. 
A senior US official said Washington had made clear since the talks began that it could not give Iran legal guarantees that a future US administration would stick to the deal, according to Reuters. 
“We said there is no legal way we can bind a future administration, and so we looked for other ways to give some form of comfort to Iran and … we—along with all of the other P5+1 [nations] and the EU coordinator—thought that file had been closed,” the senior US official added.