US And E3 Call On Iran To Agree To Current Nuclear Proposal
The United States, France, Germany and Britain have once again called on Iran to abandon its demands that are beyond the 2015 nuclear deal and agree to the current agreement at hand.
The United States, France, Germany and Britain have once again called on Iran to abandon its demands that are beyond the 2015 nuclear deal and agree to the current agreement at hand.
The foreign ministers of the United States, France, Germany and the deputy foreign minister of the United Kingdom made the call in a meeting of the Transatlantic Quad foreign ministers on the sidelines of the Group of 20 ministerial meeting in Bali, Indonesia on Friday.
According to a readout of the meeting by the US Department of State, Secretary Antony Blinken, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, and UK Second Permanent Under Secretary and Political Director Tim Barrow expressed concern about the pace of developments in Iran’s nuclear program.
They reiterated their commitment to a mutual return to full compliance with the JCPOA (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), calling on Iran to drop its extraneous demands and to quickly agree to the deal that is currently available.
Following the failure of Tehran-Washington proximity talks in Qatar last week, the US State Department says there is no plan for another round of talks for now. There has been a deal on the table that is more or less finalized for several months now, he said.
On Wednesday, Qatar’s Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani visited Iran to discuss the latest development on kickstarting the nuclear talks, which had stalled for months.
The spokesman for the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Relations Committee Mahmoud Abbaszadeh Meshkini says Iran's nuclear negotiators could have done better Doha.
Speaking to the centrist Entekhab news website in Tehran, Meshkini said the Iranian team's presence in Doha was uncalculated and that the team did not have a roadmap. He further charged that the Iranian Foreign Ministry lacks a roadmap about how to go about with the negotiations.
The United States' special representative for Iran Robert Malley has described the talks in Doha as "a waste of time" and said that Iranians first need negotiations among themselves. This comes while Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdolahian has characterized the negotiations in Doha as "positive".
Meshkini told Entekhab: "The Iranian Foreign Ministry still lacks a framework for the talks and does not know how to get concessions." He said that the Foreign Ministry needs "a deep transformation" without which the Islamic Republic will find it difficult and costly to pursue its strategy.
He added that developments in the region gave Iran the upper hand, but Tehran needs a roadmap to take advantage. On the other hand, Westerners are more experienced than Iranian negotiators and their moves are based on seeking concessions.
Meshkini concluded that the parliament should pass laws similar to the 2020 legislation that ordered the government to reduce its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal and push the government to come up with an authoritative roadmap for the talks.
Meanwhile, foreign policy commentator Amir Ali Abolfath told the conservative Nameh News website that those interested in solving the nuclear issue, including European officials, should go to Washington rather than to Tehran and try to convince the United States to return to the 2015 agreement, also called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Nameh News described the shuttle diplomacy by European and Persian Gulf officials who frequently visit Tehran to encourage Iran to return to direct talks with the United States as "useless shuttle diplomacy." However, the website acknowledged that perhaps the visits to Tehran by Qatari officials could be more fruitful.
"As long as Washington is not willing to return to the JCPOA, talking with Tehran is not likely to be effective. They come and go and take messages here and there and express hope in further developments. But the train of the negotiations is stuck and will not move forward," said Abolfath.
Eleven months of talks in Vienna were said to be close to a successful conclusion when diplomats ended the process over remaining differences between Washington and Tehran.
Since then, statements by both sides have indicated that Iran demands the lifting of all US sanctions imposed since May 2018 when former President Donald Trump withdrew from the JCPOA and imposed heavy economic penalties on Tehran.
Among these sanctions, the trickiest are those imposed on the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) and its web of companies that are closely intertwined with its financial empire.
The IRGC is Iran’s primary military force, but it is also an intelligence organization that secretly supplies weapons and money to a host of non-state actors involved in terror activities in the region.
