Washington: The United States and its European allies appear on the cusp of restoring the deal that limited Iran’s nuclear program, Biden administration officials said, but cautioned that it is now up to the new government in Tehran to decide whether, after months of negotiations, it is willing to dismantle much of its nuclear production facilities in return for sanctions relief.
A senior State Department official signalled that negotiators had reached a draft agreement last week in Vienna. It would essentially return to the 2015 deal that President Donald Trump discarded four years ago, over the objections of many of his key advisers. Ultimately, that freed Iran to resume its nuclear production, in some cases enriching nuclear fuel to levels far closer to what is needed to make nuclear weapons.
Administration officials cautioned that it was not clear whether a final agreement would be struck, and in Iran that decision is bound to go to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But the State Department official said that “we can see a path to a deal if those decisions are made and if they are made quickly”.
“Now is the time for Iran to decide whether it’s prepared to make those decisions,” the official said. A second senior administration official also said the talks had reached the decision-making stage. Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations.
Read the article by Lara Jakes, Farnaz Fassihi and David E Sanger in The Sydney Morning Herald.