Iran Doubles Down on Demands as Nuclear Talks Resume

Iran made many demands as it resumed talks Monday with the U.S. and other world powers aimed at salvaging the 2015 nuclear deal, doubling down on its position before negotiations first started in the spring and raising doubts over an early breakthrough.

The talks, taking place in the Austrian capital amid a strict coronavirus lockdown, are intended to agree on the steps Iran and the U.S. will take to return into compliance with the 2015 deal, which lifted most international sanctions on Tehran in exchange for strict but temporary restrictions on Iran’s nuclear work.

“The U.S. has no other way for its return to the JCPOA but to remove all the sanctions imposed on the Iranian nation since it walked out of the JCPOA,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said, referring to the formal name of the deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

He said the U.S. return to the deal would depend on “guarantees that Iran’s economic partners would be able to deal with Iran without worries and with confidence.”

In a sign of the distance between the two sides over reaching an agreement, Iran continued to refuse to talk directly with the U.S. team. That is forcing European diplomats to shuttle back and forth in the now-freezing Austrian weather, carrying negotiating positions between the hotels where talks take place and where the U.S. team is based.

Speaking after the first session, Enrique Mora, the European Union official who coordinates the discussions, said the Iranian team had agreed to discussions on its nuclear work on Wednesday, following discussions about sanctions on Tuesday.

Mr. Mora said there was a “sense of urgency” about progressing in the talks but there is “no fixed timeline in my mind” to complete them. He said the new round of talks may proceed as a mix of direct talks in Vienna interspersed with consultations by the delegations in their capitals.

The Trump administration quit the nuclear deal in May 2018 and reimposed sweeping sanctions on Iran. In response, Iran has steadily expanded its nuclear work beyond the agreement’s limits.

The Biden administration has set the restoration of the 2015 deal as one of its main foreign policy goals. U.S. officials have said re-entering the pact could serve as a platform for talks on a broader agreement.

The parties, which include the U.S., Britain, Germany, France, Russia, China and Iran, made significant progress in talks between April and June under the previous Iranian government of President Hassan Rouhani, who had negotiated the 2015 deal. They agreed on most of a text for restoring the deal and closed the gaps on some difficult issues—including which sanctions the U.S. would remove and the steps Iran would take to wind back its nuclear infrastructure and reduce its nuclear fuel stockpile.

But those talks ground to a halt days after an Iranian election in mid-June that brought to power a new hard-line government under President Ebrahim Raisi.

Western diplomats have expressed low expectations of swift progress in talks with the new Iranian government. Mr. Raisi has come out in support of the nuclear deal, but remains suspicious of the U.S. and other Western powers.

Iran has used the five-month hiatus in the negotiations to advance its nuclear activities, leading to sharpened Western warnings that time is running out to restore the nuclear deal. Diplomats say Iran’s advances will soon make it impossible to resurrect a centerpiece of the nuclear deal keeping Tehran at least a year away from amassing enough nuclear fuel for a bomb.

“As far as I am concerned, these talks are the last opportunity for the Iranians to come to the table & agree the JCPOA agreement,” said U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss as she met with her Israeli counterpart in London. “We will look at all options if that doesn’t happen.”

Israel, meanwhile, has sharpened its warnings that it could take military action against Iran’s nuclear program if the talks don’t stop Iran’s nuclear advance.

Iranian officials in recent days have portrayed the talks not as a negotiation on its nuclear program but as a means to agree to the conditions under which the U.S. will return to the agreement.

Speaking Sunday evening, Iran’s chief negotiator, Ali Bagheri-Khan, said Iran wanted the talks focused on the lifting of U.S. sanctions.

Iranian officials have traced out demands for Washington, including a series of asks that the Biden administration has repeatedly ruled out. They include the full lifting of all nuclear and nonnuclear sanctions imposed during the Trump administration, a guarantee that the U.S. won’t again quit the deal, compensation from the Biden administration for the U.S. exit in 2018 and a verification period which allows Tehran to ensure it is recouping the economic benefits of the deal before it reverses parts of its nuclear work.

U.S. senior Iran envoy Robert Malley has said if Iran has demands that go beyond the 2015 deal, Washington will also seek deeper concessions from Iran on its nuclear program. Iran has repeatedly rejected that.