Vienna JCPOA Talks Have Not Come to a Final Conclusion

On the eve of the fifth round of Vienna talks between Iran and world powers over the former’s illicit nuclear projects, Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s representative in the Atomic Energy Agency, said in the talks that the fifth round would probably be the last round of negotiations. But evidence suggests that the fifth round of Vienna talks has not come to an appropriate conclusion.

Then in a tweet on June 1, 2021, he stated that, “Everything is so much complicated in relations between Iran and the #IAEA to our regret! Nevertheless, we appreciate the fact that they continue to maintain the necessary level of cooperation. We have reasons to believe that the current difficulties are of temporary character.”

Vienna talks over four rounds and the fifth round was in progress that news announced by Rafael Grossi, the Director General of the Atomic Energy Agency, made the maintenance of the talks more complicated as he said:

“Iran’s failure to provide credible explanations for traces of uranium found at two undeclared sites is “a big problem” that is affecting the country’s credibility.”

Then he added that a linear return to the old JCPOA, “It is not possible. Iran has accumulated knowledge, has accumulated centrifuges, and has accumulated material.”

Then he added: “They have developed new centrifuges. Research and development have taken place. It was not allowed by the original JCPOA. It has happened and now the issue is how to deal with the results. What you absolutely need is a way to verify that if they have that knowledge, it is not being used to make bombs.”

Separately, France, one of the signatories to the deal, voiced concern after a report from the U.N. nuclear watchdog which showed on Monday that Iran had failed to explain traces of uranium found at several undeclared sites.

Now following the release of the new International Atomic Energy Agency report on the origin of new uranium particles, the three European powers must now decide whether they want to resume pressure to pass a resolution against the Iranian regime, as it could overshadow and making the ongoing talks to revive the JCPOA more complicated.

Three months ago, three European countries, Britain, France, and Germany, suspended the plan that the United States had submitted to the Board of Governors to issue a resolution against the Iranian regime on the discovery of new nuclear particles.

According to the latest report by the IAEA, the Iranian regime has not been able to provide a convincing explanation of the origin of the new uranium particles on several of its unannounced sites.

Of course, these were not the only news which are complicating the situation. In the middle of the fifth-round talks, the Agency provided another negative information about Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran’s 20 percent uranium deposits increased to 62 kilograms, which is an increase of 44.4 kg comparing the amount in February. The Agency also announced on May 31, Iran’s enriched uranium reserves reached 16 times the authorized ceiling allowed by the JCPOA. This rate was agreed upon 202 kg, while now Iran has 3.41 kg enriched uranium.

All this news is worrying while the Agency previously on 23 February 2021 has also announced that they have no access to the regulatory data.

Surprisingly, with this level of ambition, Iran’s government expectation that all the sanctions will be lifted at once is just an illusion.

The Vienna negotiations indicate that the main issues behind the scenes remained not only unresolved, but the agency’s recent statement adds to the volume of the complications and stagnation.

And the proof for that is, that the representatives of the negotiating counties returned to their capitals on June 1, 2021, without any progress, despite all the regime’s claims about progress.

Laurence Norman, a Wall Street Journal reporter in Brussels, wrote in a Twitter message on June 1: “Understand the current plan is to organise a break from Iran talks tomorrow or Thursday for delegations to return to capitals. Could change but that’s the plan. The Big question: when to resume and whether to continue before Iran presidential elections is not yet settled.”