World powers meet in Vienna on nuclear deal after Iran hardliner wins

Focus now shifts to extension of June 24 IAEA monitoring pact

World powers and Iran failed after a sixth round of negotiations in Vienna to revive a nuclear deal that would lift US sanctions on the oil-rich Islamic Republic in exchange for it scaling back its atomic activities.
 
A day after hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi was declared the winner of Iran’s presidential election, diplomats adjourned their sixth round of meetings with significant gaps remaining to mend the six-year-old accord. It’s the third time since talks began in April that negotiators have missed self-imposed deadlines to rejuvenate the agreement.
 
“How many mistakes can I make, I don’t know,” said European Union deputy foreign policy chief Enrique Mora, who twice predicted the next round of talks would be the last, most recently on June 2. “My expectation is that in the next round, delegations will come back from capitals with clearer instructions, clearer ideas to finally close the deal.”

 

Tehran’s change in administration has complicated diplomacy as the president-elect is himself subject to sanctions imposed by the Trump administration in 2019, and Iran insists they must be removed as part of an agreement to revive the pact.
 
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the US retains the option of imposing devastating sanctions.
 
“Whether the president is person A or person B is less relevant than whether their entire system is prepared to make verifiable commitments to constrain their nuclear program,” Sullivan said in a separate interview.
 
Failure to clinch a deal this week means that the focus shifts to June 24. That’s when a temporary monitoring pact expires with International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors. Iran and IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi are already in talks and the agreement is expected to be prolonged, Mora said.

 

Iran nuclear deal still possible: EU
 
Iran and world powers can still clinch a deal to revive their 2015 nuclear accord after the election victory of a hardline Iranian president but time is running out, the European Union's foreign policy chief said on Sunday.
 
Josep Borrell said an agreement was "very close", and could make West Asia safer and bring relief to millions of Iranians hit by oil and financial sanctions which the United States reimposed when it left the deal three years ago.