German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Saturday that "now is the moment of truth" to determine whether Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers can be salvaged, and the Iranian leadership needs to make a choice.
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Iran's foreign minister, though, said that it's up to Western countries to show flexibility, and "the ball is now in their court."
Scholz told participants at the annual Munich Security Conference on Saturday that Iran nuclear talks have come a long way over the past 10 months and "all elements for a conclusion of the negotiations are on the table." But he also criticized Iran for stepping up its enrichment and restricting inspections by monitors from the UN nuclear agency.
"We now have the opportunity to reach an agreement that makes it possible for sanctions to be lifted," Scholz said. "At the same time, it's the case that if we don't succeed very quickly in this, the negotiations threaten to fail."
"The Iranian leadership now has a choice," the chancellor said. "Now is the moment of truth."
Speaking a few hours later at the same Munich conference, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said that "we are ready to achieve a good deal at the earliest possible time — if the other side makes the needed political decision."
Amirabdollahian insisted that "we are in a hurry" to reach a deal. But he made clear that the issue of guarantees from the US about a restored deal's future remains a sticking point.
"We have never been this close to a deal," he said. "It is the Western side that has to present its initiatives and show flexibility ... they have not shown any flexibility so far."
Iran so far has declined to talk directly to the United States. The foreign minister suggested that direct talks would only make sense if the US lifts some sanctions or releases some Iranian assets frozen in foreign banks.
In what was his first address to the security conference, Schulz said Germany would not accept a nuclear Iran, which he noted would pose a threat to Israel's security. He said Israel's security was not up for negotiation.
A US-Iranian deal taking shape to revive Iran's 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers lays out phases of mutual steps to bring both sides back into full compliance, and the first does not include waivers on oil sanctions, diplomats say.
Envoys from Iran, Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany, the European Union, and the United States are still negotiating details of the draft accord amid Western warnings that time is running out before the original deal becomes obsolete. Delegates say much of the text is settled but some thorny issues remain.
The broad objective is to return to the original bargain of lifting sanctions against Iran, including ones that have slashed its crucial oil sales, in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear activities that extend the time it would need to produce enough enriched uranium for an atomic bomb.
Iran has breached many of those restrictions and pushed well beyond them in response to the US withdrawal from the deal in 2018 and its reimposition of sanctions under then-President Donald Trump. While the 2015 deal capped uranium enrichment at 3.67% fissile purity, Iran is now enriching to up to 60%, close to weapons-grade.
Iran insists its aims are wholly peaceful and that it wants to master nuclear technology for civil uses. But Western powers say no other state has enriched to such a high level without developing nuclear weapons and Iran's advances since the US walkout mean the 2015 deal will soon be hollowed out.
The draft text of the agreement, which is more than 20 pages long, stipulates a sequence of steps to be implemented once it has been approved by the remaining parties to the deal, starting with a phase including Iran suspending enrichment above 5% purity, three diplomats familiar with negotiations said.
The text also alludes to other measures that diplomats say include unfreezing about $7 billion in Iranian funds stuck in South Korean banks under US sanctions, as well as the release of Western prisoners held in Iran, which US lead negotiator Robert Malley has suggested is a requirement for a deal.
Only once that initial wave of measures has been taken and confirmed would the main phase of sanctions-lifting begin, culminating in what many diplomats call Reimplementation Day - a nod to the original deal's Implementation Day, when the last nuclear and sanctions-related measures fell into place.
The duration of these phases has not yet been agreed upon, and the text includes an "X" for the number of days between the milestone days such as Reimplementation Day, diplomats say. Various officials have estimated the time from an agreement until Reimplementation Day at between one and three months.
Iran will return to core nuclear limits like the 3.67% cap on enrichment purity, diplomats said.
As in the original deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the new agreement entails the United States granting waivers to sanctions on Iran's lifeblood oil sector rather than lifting them outright. That requires renewing the waivers every few months.
"On oil exports, under the deal, [former US President Barack] Obama and Trump used to issue 90- to 120-day waivers and renewed them consistently until Trump stopped after exiting the pact. Those waivers have been agreed to be issued again," a Middle Eastern diplomat briefed on the talks said.
Diplomats involved in the talks, which began 10 months ago, have said it remains unclear whether an agreement will indeed be reached, citing the now hackneyed principle that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Wednesday Iran must decide within a matter of days whether to take the leap, and other officials have said the next couple of days will be crucial.
Stubborn issues that remain include Iran's demand that the United States guarantee it will not withdraw again. Western officials say this is impossible to give an iron-clad assurance on given the difficulty in binding future governments.
The Middle Eastern diplomat and an Iranian official indicated, however, that Tehran was prepared to accept a lesser measure - that in the event of a US violation of the pact, Iran would be allowed to enrich to up to 60% purity again.
The Islamic Republic and Western powers have previously clashed over whether the US withdrawal gave Iran the right to breach the deal under the original text, as Tehran did, as well as over what constitutes a breach.
The lifting of some particularly sensitive sanctions could also require Iranian and US officials to meet directly, several diplomats have said. Iran has so far refused face-to-face meetings. Any such move would happen at the end of negotiations, the Iranian and Middle Eastern officials said.
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