The eighth round of negotiations between Iran and world powers began on December 29 and the parties appear to be close to signing a deal after 11 months of intense negotiations.
“The talks in Vienna … have progressed remarkably in the past weeks, the agreement between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency to draw up a joint roadmap to resolve the outstanding issues is a testament to this,” the state agency IRNA quoted an informed source close to the Iranian negotiating team in Vienna. “On the opposite side, the slowness of the American team in political decision-making, has stalled the process of reaching a good agreement.”
The revival of the deal will not result in the normalization of ties between the US and Iran. CIA Director William Burns publicly told the US House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday that regardless of a deal, Iran will still be perceived as a threat to the Middle East and to US allies in the region.
Iran’s chief negotiator Ali Bagheri returned to Tehran on Tuesday for consultation and is expected to return to Vienna on Wednesday. “Despite remarkable progress in the negotiations, there are still important issues outstanding and the final agreement has not been reached and there is no definite time for this,” IRNA said on Wednesday. “Reaching a final agreement depends only on making the necessary political decision by the Western side in particular Washington.”
The top European Union negotiator Enrique Mora echoed the same sentiment on Tuesday and said there are no more “expert level talks” and no further formal meetings. “It is time, in the next few days, for political decisions to end the #ViennaTalks . The rest is noise.”
The latest phase of the negotiation has continued in the shadow of Russian aggression on Ukraine, leading to oil prices soaring above 130 dollars per barrel. The lifting of Iranian sanctions will enable Iranian oil to flood the markets, stabilizing the current price increase.
The West has imposed crippling sanctions on Russia and President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that the US would stop buying Russian oil, followed by similar statements from European countries despite being heavily dependent on Russian gas.
The sanctions, which have tightened the grip around the Russian economy, forced Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on March 4 to seek guarantees from the US that Ukraine-related sanctions would not impact the economic, military, technical and trade relations between Russia and Iran.
On the other hand, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian rebuked the Russian side on Tuesday and said Tehran would not allow any foreign country to negatively impact Iran’s national interests in Vienna talks.
Meanwhile, Qatari diplomats have been stepping up their efforts in mediating between Washington and Tehran according to the Financial Times. Qatar has ferried messages between both parties to build trust in order to resolve other pressing issues including prisoner exchanges, in case of an agreement in Vienna. A senior US official told the paper that Qatar had been “extremely, extremely helpful in supporting efforts to resume full implementation of the JCPOA [the nuclear accord]”.
