“Nuclear talks are approaching a dangerous impasse”

London officials say the pace of the nuclear talks is not fast enough and is approaching a dangerous impasse. The US Secretary of State said in a detailed interview that the US withdrawal from the JCPOA was one of the worst decisions in US diplomacy in the last ten years.

The British Foreign Secretary says nuclear talks with Iran aimed at reviving the 2015 JCPOA agreement are reaching a dangerous impasse.

"These negotiations are very urgent but not fast enough," Liz Truss said in the British parliament on Tuesday, January 25, according to Reuters.

The British Foreign Secretary stated that his country is working with its allies in this regard, but the negotiations are reaching a dangerous impasse.

Liz Truss added that Iran must now choose whether it wants to join the deal or be responsible for the failure of the JCPOA. She said that if the JCPOA fails, all other options are on the table.

Blinken's explanations about the nuclear issue with Iran

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed the Iranian nuclear issue in detail in an interview with the Fran Eisenstadt Memorial and Family Foundation on various areas of US diplomacy, including the Ukraine-Russia conflict, the US approach to China, and the Middle East and Afghanistan crises. The interview was published on the US State Department website.

The US Secretary of State said the 2015 JCPOA agreement was reached under the Obama administration because of “Iran’s destructive activities in the Middle East and beyond.” He added that the JCPOA, on the other hand, was able to halt Iran’s 2003 nuclear weapons program.

Blinken stated that if the Iranians really want to restart their nuclear weapons program, the weaponization part will be out of reach and it will be harder to do anything about it, because if they were to get an actual weapon, they would probably do it somewhere in a room behind a computer in a relatively small facility.

"An Iranian with a nuclear weapon or the ability to produce one very quickly, who can get one very quickly, would be an Iranian who would operate with greater impunity in all of these areas," Blinken said. "Also, an Iranian with a nuclear weapon poses an existential threat to Israel and to other countries in the region, and it poses a serious potential threat to us, not only in the region but right here [in the United States]."

“America’s withdrawal from the JCPOA was the worst decision”

The US Secretary of State said that the JCPOA agreement "focused on fissile material and effectively put Iran's nuclear program back in the box, and I have to say, of all the decisions that have been made in US foreign policy in the last five to ten years, I think the withdrawal from this agreement was probably the worst."

Blinken said that the then-US administration led by Donald Trump had promised that the deal would be replaced by a stronger one, but that did not happen: “Instead, Iran has since used this as an excuse to resume the most dangerous aspects of its program, which is to start producing fissile material at 20 percent, 60 percent, and threatened to do it at 90 percent, which the JCPOA had stopped at 3.67 percent. All of this means that weapons-grade fissile material can be produced very, very quickly. Iran began using more sophisticated centrifuges, all of which were banned by the deal. It also began to obstruct the work of international inspectors, who were giving us very high visibility into all aspects of this program.”

Regarding the possibility of returning to bilateral compliance with the JCPOA, the US Secretary of State said that the US government's assessment is that "of all the imperfect options we have, this is still the best way to put Iran's nuclear program back in the box while at the same time creating an opportunity for us to address all of Iran's other extremist policies."

Blinken added that there is nothing in the original JCPOA agreement that "prevents us from pursuing, sanctioning and addressing other things that Iran is doing that we deeply oppose."

"We are nearing the end of the opportunity"

The US Secretary of State emphasized that the nuclear negotiations are nearing the end of the path to returning to the JCPOA, as Iran has made progress in its nuclear program.

“There are two arguments for this,” Blinken said. “Iran is getting to a point where its escape time, the time it takes to produce the fissile material for a bomb, is getting shorter and shorter, to a few weeks, and that in itself is something that should not continue to happen. That is not a world we want to live in. Second, Iran is continuing to acquire knowledge and expertise to the point that at some point in the near future, even going back to all the restrictions of the JCPOA would not be enough to regain the nonproliferation benefits. Because all the things Iran has learned that allow it to escape even with the restrictions of the JCPOA are much faster. So we are getting closer to that point.”

Regarding the possibility of reaching an agreement to return to the nuclear deal in the Vienna talks, the US Secretary of State said: "I can't tell you tonight whether we will return to bilateral compliance or not. I think a decision will be made in a few weeks, because given what Iran is doing, we cannot allow this to continue. Our allies and partners in Europe think the same way. I would say that the Russians, who are part of this process [the Vienna talks], also feel the same urgency. We will have to see what happens."

Anthony Blinken made it clear that if the United States and its allies cannot reach an agreement with Iran, they will turn to other options to resolve this problem, which they have already worked hard on.

Shamkhani's opinion on direct negotiations with the US

Following Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian's statements regarding the possibility of direct negotiations between Iran and the United States on a range of specific issues and the United States' welcome of this approach, the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council has said that Iran's method of communication with the United States will only be replaced with other methods when a "good agreement" is available.

Ali Shamkhani wrote in a tweet: "So far, communication with the American delegation in Vienna has been through informal written exchanges, and there has been no need for anything more than this and there will be no need for anything more. This method of communication will only be replaced by other methods when a good agreement is available."

Source: DW