Iran nuclear deal: US dismisses latest move from Tehran as ‘not constructive

The Guardian-Sept 1st 2022

Julian Borger in Washington and Patrick Wintour

US state department rejects what Iran characterised as a bid to ‘finalise the negotiations’ in latest efforts to agree a deal

Hopes of a rapid conclusion to negotiations on a revived nuclear deal with Iran have receded after the US quickly rejected the latest Iranian proposal as “not constructive”.

Washington’s rapid reaction to the Iranian text, which had been delivered shortly before 3am on Friday Tehran time, directly contradicted Tehran’s claims that its proposals presented “a constructive approach” aimed at “finalising the negotiations”.

Only minutes after the Iran proposals were received by the EU and passed on to Washington, the Biden administration gave it a provisional, but abrupt, thumbs down.

“We can confirm that we have received Iran’s response through the EU,” a state department spokesman said. “We are studying it and will respond through the EU, but unfortunately it is not constructive.”

An unnamed US official was quoted in Politico as saying: “Based on their answer we appear to be moving backwards.”

It is not clear what was in the Iranian text that was the latest round in a to-and-fro exchange with Washington aimed at tweaking a draft agreement presented by the EU on 8 August. Iran gave its first response to the draft on 15 August, which was followed by a response from the US. The latest Iranian document was, in turn, a reply to the US text.

Officials on both sides had been cautiously optimistic about the possibility of converge on a final agreement that will revive a 2015 nuclear deal in which Iran accepted strict limits on its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. That agreement has been severely eroded since Donald Trump withdrew US participation in 2018 and reintroduced sanctions.

Last week, John Kirby, the US national security spokesman, had hailed what he called Iranian concessions and on Wednesday this week said the White House remained “hopeful” there would be a deal.

Early on Friday in Tehran, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanaani, had said Iran’s latest text presented “a constructive approach with the aim of finalising the negotiations”.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, had also struck an optimistic note on Wednesday in an address to French diplomats in Paris, saying he hoped a new deal could be agreed on “in the next few days”.

But Ali Alizadeh, a member of the Iranian parliament security commission had dampened that optimism, by warning that the US position was not aligned with the EU draft text, saying it had dashed his earlier hopes that agreement was days away.

The Iranian foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, said Iran still needed stronger guarantees that the lifting of US sanctions would have a practical impact, and could not readily be reimposed by future US administrations.

“On guarantees, we need a stronger text,” the minister said in Moscow at a press conference with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.

Joe Biden has said he can guarantee US compliance with the agreement under his presidency but not by future administrations – in effect giving Iran only a two-year guarantee of sanctions relief.