A sort of diplomatic cortege between Americans, Europeans, and Iranians marks the hours before the latter pass a critical measure in response to persistent sanctions. Washington’s express willingness to sit down to negotiate with the signatories has motivated the express European willingness to invite him to hold an informal discussion on the matter. To which Tehran has responded by referring to its precondition that deeds precede words.
Since Joe Biden entered the White House as president, his promise to get back on track with the 2015 accord, which his predecessor tried to dynamite by withdrawing from it and reimposing sanctions, has been subject to the Iranians re-sticking with everyone. their commitments to it, which they stepped down a year after the ex-leader’s goodbye to the pact. For its part, Iran has insisted time and again that they will return to all commitments as soon as the sanctions are lifted.
This face-to-face stop which seemed doomed to another regional crisis began to see some light on Thursday. The US announced that it would accept an invitation from the High Representative of the European Union to attend a meeting of the P5 + 1 and Iran to discuss a forward diplomatic path on the Iranian nuclear program. P5 + 1 is what the set of permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany are called. They all signed the atomic pact.
The little concealed offer was received with a certain reproachful tone by those who remember that just days before, a burst of rockets killed a civilian contractor and injured several Americans. A Shiite militia claimed responsibility for the attack on a base in Erbil, Iraq. Most observers agreed that the coup was precisely looking for a favorable US reaction to Iran. On Thursday night a White House source stressed that “there are no concessions to Iran, but common sense.
After the North American announcement, the European reply from the hand of Enrique Mora, Deputy Secretary-General for Political Affairs of the European External Action Service: “The PIAC [nuclear agreement is] at a critical moment. Intense conversations with all the participants and the US. willing to invite them to an informal meeting to discuss a way forward, “he posted on Twitter, accepting Iran’s appeals to Josep Borrell that EL MUNDO had reported.
These moves, which have been accompanied by a renouncement of Trump’s measures to try to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran and to limit the movements of Iranian diplomats in New York, seek to reheat diplomacy with Iran. Hours before announcing the will for dialogue, Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with his counterparts in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, who had been especially critical of the measures that Iran has planned to take.
Tehran had announced to the International Atomic Energy Organization (IAEA) that next week it would suspend the voluntary application of the Additional Protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Its effect is that nuclear inspectors will no longer have access to the facilities indicated in the safeguards agreement signed with the IAEA. “Iran will continue to implement certain inspections, but the Additional Protocol will certainly stop,” Iranian sources tell Fars Agency.
This measure adds to previous ones, such as producing 20% enriched uranium, under a law that the Iranian Parliament – dominated by the hard-line for a year – approved urgently last September for the murder of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fajrizadé at the hands of Israeli agents. Since then, and although Tehran has avoided escalating regional tension during the transition period in the US, Iran has maintained that there is no going back without lifting sanctions.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry has sent the same message this Friday, in response to Western offers. “Instead of sophistry and holding Iran accountable, the EU should honor its own commitments and demand an end to Trump’s legacy of economic terrorism from Iran,” its headline Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote on Twitter, referring to the fact that Iran blames the EU to bow to US sanctions. Our corrective measures are a response to the violations by the US and E3 the European signatories of the nuclear agreement]. Eliminate the cause if you fear the effect Zarif concluded.
