WASHINGTON (AFP) – The U.S. The US, led by President Joe Biden, will restart indirect talks with Iran in Vienna on Monday, but is significantly less hopeful than it was in the spring about the chances of salvaging the Iranian nuclear agreement.
And if negotiations fail, its options for preventing Tehran from building a nuclear weapon are limited.
- Reintroduction of the 2015 agreement –
Donald Trump, as president, withdrew from the international agreement in 2018 and reimposed US sanctions dropped under the provisions of the agreement.
As a result, the Islamic Republic has violated many of the constraints imposed on its nuclear programme.
Biden has stated that he is willing to return to the agreement reached in 2015 by then-President Barack Obama, for whom Biden served as vice president, as long as Iran likewise returns to the original conditions.
The indirect talks in Vienna restart on Monday following a five-month hiatus imposed by Iran.
“There is opportunity to rapidly establish and execute an agreement,” a US State Department official said on Wednesday.
However, the United States’ ambassador to Iran, Rob Malley, has stated that Tehran’s approach “doesn’t augur well for the discussions.”
Washington has accused the Middle Eastern country of stalling its feet and upping its “radical” demands despite making substantial progress toward acquiring a nuclear weapon.
- A provisional accord –
If, when discussions restart, it becomes evident to the US that Iran is merely trying to buy time before accelerating its nuclear programme, Washington would not “sit quietly by,” Malley said.
“We’ll have to see further attempts, diplomatic and otherwise, to handle Iran’s nuclear goals,” he added.
A possible temporary accord was considered as one of the diplomatic alternatives.
“The Biden administration may consider a short-term compromise, a limited accord that freezes some of Iran’s most proliferation-sensitive programmes in exchange for some modest sanctions relief,” Kelsey Davenport, the Arms Control Association’s head of nonproliferation strategy, told AFP recently.
The purpose is to gain time, as Tehran is now considerably closer to acquiring a nuclear weapon than it was previously.
However, such a step risks inciting a backlash in Washington, not just among Republicans but also among certain members of Biden’s Democratic Party, who would perceive it as an overly generous concession to Iran.