Nuclear negotiations with Iran resume after Raisí’s victory

The powers that are negotiating to reestablish the nuclear agreement with Iran hold a plenary meeting in Vienna this Sunday, the first after the election of the ultra-conservative Ebrahim Raisí as the next president of the Islamic Republic.

Iran and five great powers (Germany, China, France, the United Kingdom and Russia) have been negotiating in Vienna since the beginning of April for the United States to return to the agreement and Tehran to comply with it in full.

“An agreement to reestablish the nuclear pact is within our reach, but it has not yet been concluded,” the Russian negotiator, Mikhail Ulyanov, valued on Twitter.

The United States participates indirectly in the negotiations although not in their plenary format because in 2018 the previous president, Republican Donald Trump, abandoned the pact.

This Sunday’s meeting is part of the sixth round of contacts that began on June 12, and it is very likely that after the meeting the delegations will return to their capitals for consultations.

The 2015 nuclear pact established limits and restrictions on Iran’s civil nuclear program to prevent it from developing atomic bombs, in return Tehran obtained the economic advantages that the lifting of international sanctions entailed.

The departure of the US in 2018 and the imposition of sanctions on Iran was a blow to the agreement. Tehran responded by violating the pact regarding the production and purity of sensitive nuclear material, such as enriched uranium.

A recent report by the UN nuclear agency confirmed that Iran already has about 3,200 kilos of enriched uranium, instead of the 300 allowed in the agreement.

In addition, Iran has managed to enrich uranium to a purity of 60%, well above the allowed (3.67%) and close to the level necessary to make nuclear bombs (90%).

The new president of the United States, Democrat Joe Biden, wants to return to the agreement, but first demands that Iran fulfill all its obligations, while Tehran demands a prior lifting of sanctions.

That is one of the central aspects of the negotiations in Vienna: establishing the concrete steps with which both countries return to the nuclear agreement.

Despite the fact that the US has criticized the elections in which Raisí has ​​won for not being “free or fair” and for its low participation, it stressed that it will continue with the negotiating process in Vienna.

“We would like to continue the significant progress that has been made during the last rounds of talks in Vienna,” said a State Department spokesman.