Are the US and Iran about to restore the nuclear deal?

Aljazeera – Aug 23rd 2022

Maziar Motamedi

Tehran, Iran – Iran and the United States have inched closer to an agreement on restoring their 2015 nuclear deal after 16 months of painstaking negotiations, but everything could hinge on what happens in the coming days.

All eyes are now on Washington as it prepares to submit its response to Iran’s written comments on a “final” text proposed by the European Union at the end of talks in Vienna earlier this month.

The bloc’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, on Monday said the Iranian response was “reasonable”, officially confirming the view a number of European diplomats had anonymously conveyed to Western media outlets since last week.

US Department of State spokesman Ned Price told reporters late Monday that a response will be given as soon as internal consultations are completed, adding that “we will not take one day longer than is necessary”.

This came shortly after Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani accused the US of “procrastinating” in its response.

“The [US] response was supposed to have come already,” Borrell said, in comments that could put pressure on Washington, adding that a meeting in Vienna to seal the deal could happen soon.

Iran has seemingly abandoned a demand to take its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) off a US “terror” list, an issue that was deemed a non-starter by the administration of US President Joe Biden after months of media scrutiny and local opposition.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the deal is formally known, was signed in 2015, putting curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for the lifting of multilateral sanctions.

In 2018, the US unilaterally abandoned the accord, imposing harsh sanctions that are in effect to this day.

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