Indirect talks between Iran and the United States on salvaging the 2015 Iran nuclear deal resumed on Monday with Tehran focused on one side of the original bargain, lifting sanctions against it, despite scant progress on reining in its atomic activities.
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The seventh round of talks, the first under Iran's new hardline President Ebrahim Raisi, ended 10 days ago after adding some new Iranian demands to a working text. Western powers said progress was too slow and negotiators had "weeks not months" left before the 2015 deal becomes meaningless.
Little remains of that deal, which lifted sanctions against Tehran in exchange for restrictions on its atomic activities. Then-President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of it in 2018, re-imposing US sanctions, and Iran later breached many of the deal's nuclear restrictions and kept pushing well beyond them. "If we work hard in the days and weeks ahead we should have a positive result.... It's going to be very difficult, it's going to be very hard. Difficult political decisions have to be taken both in Tehran and in Washington," the talks' coordinator, European Union envoy Enrique Mora, told a news conference.
"There is a sense of urgency in all delegations that this negotiation has to be finished in a relatively reasonable period of time. Again, I wouldn't put limits but we are talking about weeks, not about months," Mora said.
Speaking at the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Monday, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid discussed the Vienna talks, saying that Israel opposed any deal that would not allow for "true oversight" of Iran's nuclear program.
"We prefer international cooperation, but if necessary, we [Israel] will act alone," Lapid said.
Lapid called preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons the "main challenge" facing Israel's defense and foreign policy.
"In recent months, we've been in an intensive dialogue with all the countries involved in these negotiations. Mainly with the US, naturally, but not only them. We've told everyone clearly that Israel will not allow Iran to become a nuclear threshold state … We will defend our security by ourselves," Lapid said.
"We've presented our allies with plenty of hard intelligence. Not only opinions and positions, but intelligence material that proves that Iran is consistently fooling the world. All they care about is the sanctions being lifted and millions of dollars being poured into the nuclear program, to Hezbollah, to Syria, to Iraq, and into the terrorist network they have spread all over the world," Lapid said.
"Israel does not oppose all deals. A good deal would be good. We oppose a deal that does not offer any possibility for true oversight of the Iranian nuclear program, Iran money, or the Iranian terrorist network," he added.
Shortly before the talks restarted on Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian was presenting a tough stance, insisting that any agreements secured in previous rounds of negotiations, when former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was still in office, were null and void as far as Iran was concerned.
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For Iran, the key issue of the talks remains and end to sanctions, without any limitations.
"The most important issue for us is to reach a point where, firstly, Iranian oil can be sold easily and without hindrance," Iranian media quoted Amirabdollahian saying.
Iran also insists that sanctions on its financial institutions be lifted, so money for oil is sells can be deposited.
Amirabdollahian said that there were two new drafts on the table that had been prepared by the Raisi government, about which Iran and the US were conducted indirect negotiations. Iran refuses to meet directly with US officials, meaning that other parties must shuttle between the two sides. The United States has repeatedly expressed frustration at this format, saying it slows down the process, and Western officials still suspect Iran is simply playing for time.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh confirmed on Monday that Tehran and Washington had traded draft versions of an agreement while the Vienna talks were ongoing.
"We are trading informal texts with the US indirectly," Khatibzadeh said.
Khatibzadeh also accused the Western nations of wasting the negotiating teams' time with demands outside the framework of the 2015 agreement.
"It is intolerable for Iran that they waste the teams' time and energy with useless news while having demands beyond the JCPOA from Iran and offering benefits less than what was agreed in the deal to Iran," said Khatibzadeh, IRNA reported.
JNS contributed to this report.
