Al Jazeera :
World powers are continuing private talks in Vienna aimed at reviving Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal but disagreements between Iran and the West have kept on spilling into public view.
In a tweet early on Tuesday, Iran’s chief negotiator wrote that some counterparts still “persist in their blame game habit, instead of real diplomacy”.
Ali Bagheri Kani added that “diplomacy is a two-way street”, suggesting that the three European signatories to the deal – France, Germany, and the United Kingdom – and the United States, which unilaterally abandoned the accord in 2018, lack the political will to reach an agreement.
This came shortly after senior diplomats from the so-called E3 said they still have not “been able to get down to real negotiations”.
“Time is running out. Without swift progress, in light of Iran’s fast-forwarding of its nuclear programme, the JCPOA will soon become an empty shell,” they warned in reference to the formal name of the accord, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that diplomacy remained the best option but warned that Washington was “actively engaging with allies and partners on alternatives”.
After waiting for a year following the US withdrawal and the imposition of harsh sanctions, Iran gradually boosted its nuclear programme and is now enriching uranium up to 60 percent and employing advanced centrifuges.
But the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has confirmed that the country does not enrich uranium to the 90 percent purity required for a nuclear bomb, and Iran has consistently maintained that it will never seek a nuclear weapon.
The seventh round of talks to restore the JCPOA in the Austrian capital began on Thursday following a week-long pause. Prior to the pause, Iran presented two documents containing its proposals, which the E3 – which conducts shuttle diplomacy between American negotiators – rejected as incompatible with the terms of the deal.
Iran has said it has also prepared a third document on its demands for the verification of sanctions-lifting and guarantees the US would not renege on the JCPOA again, which will be presented after an agreement is reached over the initial two texts.
Many bilateral and multilateral meetings have been held in Vienna, both at the level of chief negotiators and expert workgroups. Another meeting of the JCPOA Joint Commission could come before the weekend, but no date has been officially confirmed.
In a tweet late on Monday, Russia’s chief negotiator, Mikhail Ulyanov, said “numerous” issues remained but all sides were working to bridge these gaps.
