Last-minute Russian demands related to the war going on in Ukraine threatened to derail the near-complete process of reviving the Iran nuclear deal yesterday as the EU announced negotiations would be now be paused.
EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell in a tweet on Sunday morning, tweeted that the pause was ‘due to external factors,’ despite the fact that ‘a final text is essentially ready and on the table’.
Africa Today News, New York recalls that the current round of negotiations began sometime in late November in the Austrian capital Vienna between Britain, China, France, Germany, Iran and Russia, with the US taking part indirectly.
They had progressed most of the way toward their aim — the revival of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which began unravelling when former US President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018.
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The EU diplomat who has been chairing the talks, Enrique Mora, told newsmen that delegations had got to the point of ‘negotiating footnotes’.
He praised in particular the United States and Iran for their ‘very constructive, very positive approach’, adding that he hoped to see the talks resume ‘very, very soon’.
However, last week Russia said it was demanding guarantees that the Western sanctions imposed on its economy following its invasion of Ukraine would not affect its trade with Iran.
As with the original JCPOA in 2015, Moscow had been expected to play a role in the implementation of any fresh deal, for example by receiving shipments of enriched uranium from Iran.
‘The Ukraine conflict has now entered the Vienna talks in a very real way,’ Eric Brewer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative told reporters.
He said the ‘blanket guarantee’ demanded by Moscow ‘has thrown a wrench into this process at the last minute that really threatens to upend talks and prevent the restoration of the JCPOA’.
Meanwhile, Africa Today News, New York can confirm that the United States has now put the ball in Iran and Russia’s court following the EU announcement.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK