France: Iran has only a few days to revive the JCPOA
The French foreign minister warned that Iran has only days, not weeks, to accept a deal that would revive the JCPOA. He said the Vienna talks had reached a crucial point and he was waiting for Iran's political decisions.
On Wednesday, February 16, Jean-Yves Le Drian warned the Islamic Republic in the French Senate that the remaining time to accept an agreement to revive the JCPOA is no more than a few days.
According to Reuters, the French Foreign Minister stated that the Vienna talks have reached a decisive stage, adding that Iran will either provoke a serious crisis in the next few days or accept an agreement that meets the interests of all parties.
He emphasized that in the current situation, Iran needs to make its own political decisions, and they have a very clear choice to make.
Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping exchanged views on Wednesday in a telephone conversation, including on the Vienna talks.
The French presidential office said in a statement that in this conversation, Macron and Xi Jinping agreed on the need to increase joint efforts to reach an agreement with Iran on the revival of the JCPOA.
The new phase of the eighth round of Vienna talks began last week. The three European countries that are parties to the agreement and the United States, which is indirectly participating in these talks, have repeatedly emphasized that due to the rapid progress of Iran's nuclear activities, the task of reviving the JCPOA must be clarified as soon as possible and by the end of February.
According to Fars News Agency, the Islamic Republic's Foreign Minister, in a joint press conference with his Irish counterpart on Monday, February 15, called the agreement in the Vienna talks "achievable."
Tehran's conflicting messages
According to this report, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, while emphasizing Iran's readiness to reach a "good agreement," called on European countries and the United States to demonstrate their true intention to return to the JCPOA "instead of playing with text and time."
Regarding the prospects for negotiations to revive the JCPOA, he said: "For Iran, it would be better if an agreement were reached in Vienna today than if it happened tomorrow. We are in a hurry to reach a good agreement, but within the framework of rational negotiations and within the framework of achieving the rights and interests of our people."
Saeed Khatibzadeh, spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, also emphasized on Monday that despite the remaining sensitive and key issues, "there is no deadlock in the Vienna talks" and that if the "logic that Iran has put on the table" is followed by the European and American sides, an agreement could be announced as soon as tomorrow.
Despite these insistences on the desire to reach an agreement in the near future, Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, wrote in a Twitter message on Sunday that after a telephone conversation with Ali Bagheri Kani, Iran's chief negotiator, it was certain for him that "the difficulty of the task would increase moment by moment."
Shamkhani and the empty shell of the JCPOA?
Shamkhani also accused Europe and the United States of breach of promise on his Twitter page on Wednesday morning, writing: "Now the JCPOA has become an empty shell for Iran in the economic sphere and the lifting of sanctions."
In this message, the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council considered "America's intransigence and Europe's inaction" as factors due to which "no negotiations beyond the JCPOA will take place."
Western countries have always demanded that the Islamic Republic's missile programs and regional activities be added to the JCPOA negotiations, and Shamkhani's reference could mean that these requests are being seriously raised and one of the possible reasons for the lack of progress in the negotiations.
Iran is counting heavily on the support of China and Russia in the Vienna talks. These countries signed all the sanctions resolutions against the Islamic Republic before the nuclear deal, and now the French foreign minister says that the three European countries, China, Russia, and the United States, have converged to reach an agreement.
Amir Abdollahian's request to the US Congress
One of Iran's preconditions for returning to fulfilling its obligations under the JCPOA is receiving a guarantee from the United States that it will not withdraw from the nuclear agreement again.
The United States has called this request unacceptable and impractical because the current US administration cannot provide such a guarantee on behalf of future administrations.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Amir Abdollahian said that the US Congress should issue a political statement regarding the country's JCPOA commitments and returning to the nuclear agreement.
The majority of representatives in the United States Congress, even a number of Democratic representatives and senators, are critics of the JCPOA, and it seems that making such a request, if serious, would further fuel the "serious crisis" that Le Drian spoke of.
Source: DW
