US welcomes EU announcement of resumption of Iran nuclear talks

WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan 24) – The US has said that it welcomes the European Union’s announcement that talks with Tehran on the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), would resume at the end of the month.

A seventh round of talks is to begin in Vienna on November 29, State Department Spokesperson Ned Price told journalists on Wednesday.

Price’s announcement followed a joint statement issued on Saturday by the leaders of the US, Britain, France and Germany, who met on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Rome.

Their statement called for the resumption of the JCPOA talks, which Tehran suspended in June, following the election of its new president, the hardline cleric, Ebrahim Raisi.

At the same time, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued the toughest US statement yet on the suspended nuclear talks, as he warned that “every option,” including the military option, was “on the table.”

Read More: US warns Iran on nuclear program

In announcing the US welcome of the resumption of the JCPOA talks, Price emphasized two points: it was possible for both sides to return quickly to compliance with the agreement, while there was a limit to the time that the US was prepared to wait. However, he set no specific deadline.

“We believe that if the Iranians are serious, we can manage” to return to the JCPOA “in relatively short order,” Price said.

But because Iran’s suspension of the talks “has dragged on for some time,” Price continued, “this window of opportunity will not be open forever,” adding, “especially if Iran continues to take provocative nuclear steps.”

Since 2019, Iran has been violating the terms of the nuclear accord by enriching uranium to ever-higher levels; producing prohibited materials; and increasingly limiting oversight of its nuclear activities by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA.)

Some countries, particularly Israel, are very concerned about the progress that Iran has been making in its nuclear program. Amos Harel, a columnist for one of Israel’s leading papers, Ha’aretz, summed up this concern in a report he wrote on Monday entitled, “Israel’s Daily Warnings on Iran Are Falling on Deaf Ears in Washington.”

Price stressed the importance of resuming the negotiations where they left off and not re-negotiating points that have already been agreed upon.

There was been “tremendous progress” in the first six rounds of talks, he said. “It would be neither productive nor wise to take up from any other position” than “where we left off in June.”

The US position has been supported by Russia, which is also a party to the negotiations.

However, last Wednesday, when Iran first indicated it would agreeable to resuming talks on the JCPOA, the Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian told journalists, “We don’t want to enter the Vienna negotiations from the deadlock point of the Vienna negotiations.”

Thus, that issue may prove to be the first sticking point in the upcoming negotiations.