European and Iranian diplomats will meet in Geneva on Tuesday to try to restart negotiations on limiting Iran’s nuclear enrichment program and avoid triggering painful sanctions on Iran that were suspended under a landmark 2015 deal.
That deal expires on Oct. 18. Its European signatories have said they will reinstate the sanctions unless there is significant progress on negotiating a new agreement. Time is running out for them to decide, and last month the Europeans offered to extend the deadline.
In return, they have demanded that Iran do three things: restart talks in earnest on the status of its uranium stockpile and nuclear program, account for its 400 kilograms of near weapons-grade uranium and restore access to inspectors from the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. The agency is charged with monitoring the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which Iran has signed, and with separately tracking Iran’s compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal.
The United States had also been part of the 2015 agreement, but President Trump withdrew from it in 2018. More recently, Iran halted fledgling talks with the United States after Israel launched a 12-day war in June that damaged Iran’s nuclear facilities and other infrastructure. Following that conflict, which included a U.S. bombing campaign intended to destroy Iran’s nuclear-enrichment capability, Iran rejected direct talks with Washington on a new nuclear deal.
Britain, France and Germany have urged Iran to meet again with the United States and to make a concrete step toward restoring international trust in its declarations about its nuclear activities. Iran has insisted that its program is for civilian use only, despite its enriching enough uranium to near weapons-grade, which is needed to make 10 nuclear warheads.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Sunday that the dispute between Tehran and Washington “is not a matter that can be resolved.” He vowed that Iran “cannot be brought to its knees” by the United States, despite Mr. Trump’s call on Iran to surrender. Those who advocate direct talks with the United States are “superficial,” he said.
This is not the first time that Ayatollah Khamenei has used harsh language to criticize Washington, only to allow Iranian officials to negotiate later.
But Iran’s military commanders followed his speech with their own tough talk. They warned about the consequences of any Israeli or American effort to attack Iran again. And Iranian officials have challenged the right of the Europeans to exercise the so-called snapback provisions of the 2015 deal, which restore the pre-deal sanctions.
Such comments from Iran’s top officials have provided little optimism that the Europeans will be able to justify an extension before restoring the sanctions. Iran’s stance suggests that European officials will exercise the 2015 deal’s snapback provisions in the next few weeks because they have concluded that Iran has been violating its deal’s terms. At the same time, Iran has also resumed low-level discussions with the International Atomic Energy Agency, but has not allowed its inspectors access to nuclear sites within Iran.
The end of August deadline is because the process for restoring the sanctions calls for a 30-day notification period under U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231, which provided the legal framework for the 2015 deal. The Europeans prefer to get it done before Iran’s ally, Russia, takes over the chair of the Security Council in October, said Ali Vaez, director of the Iran project for the International Crisis Group. As chair, Russia might alter the agenda or complicate regular procedures, which would risk running out the clock.
On Friday, David Lammy, Britain’s foreign secretary, said he and his German and French counterparts spoke with Iran’s top diplomat, Abbas Araghchi. “We are committed to diplomacy, but time is short,” Mr. Lammy said. “We have offered Iran a diplomatic solution with an extension to sanctions relief. Without a verifiable, durable deal, this will end.”
What’s at stake
Iran, Europe and the United States all have leverage in renewed negotiations. The main sticking point, as it has been for months, is Iran’s refusal to accede to America’s insistence that Iran give up all uranium enrichment. Though damaged, Iran’s nuclear program is hardly destroyed, and much of its knowledge about nuclear enrichment cannot be bombed away.
Without progress in negotiations to extend the deadline on restoring sanctions, any U.N. restrictions could vanish for decades, thanks to the difficulty of achieving unanimity in a Security Council where Russia and China each holds a veto.
Even an extension would require all the Security Council members, including the United States, to agree, which may be a hard sell given the Trump administration’s deep distrust of Iran. In pulling the United States out of the 2015 deal, Mr. Trump reimposed U.S. sanctions on Iran, hoping in vain to force the country into a better deal.
Ellie Geranmayeh, an Iran expert with the European Council on Foreign Relations, has recommended a one-time, one-year extension. She has said it would allow “breathing time for talks with Washington” and for the International Atomic Energy Agency to gauge the state of Iran’s nuclear program and stockpile of enriched uranium.
Iran has regularly insisted that it is not pursuing a weapon, but will not stop enrichment, as it has the legal right to do under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Iranian officials also said that it would agree to strict limits on that enrichment of the kind laid out in the 2015 deal.
Iran has said that if the sanctions are restored, it will leave the Nonproliferation Treaty and stop all cooperation with the atomic energy agency. Both Israel and the United States have said they are prepared to bomb Iran again to prevent Tehran from making a nuclear weapon.
Where other powers stand
President Trump and the Israelis have insisted that Iran give up any nuclear enrichment. Some European allies are less adamant so long as limits on enrichment are severe and monitored more closely than they are now. But they also are concerned that Mr. Trump, faced with the complications of a deal, may have lost interest, believing that the bombing has solved the problem for now.
Iranian officials have met with its allies China, the biggest buyer of Iranian oil, and Russia. One topic, according to Iran’s foreign ministry, was how to prevent or mitigate the consequences of any restored sanctions.
Russia and China both remain members of the 2015 nuclear deal, as do the Europeans, but they could not prevent the restoration of snapback sanctions if the Europeans chose to exercise them.
Steven Erlanger is the chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe and is based in Berlin. He has reported from over 120 countries, including Thailand, France, Israel, Germany and the former Soviet Union.
The post European Officials Press Iran on Nuclear Talks. Here’s What to Know. appeared first on New York Times.
