A very light breeze of optimism is blowing over Vienna, the world capital of diplomacy. This title is deserved for a few days at least, as long as the attempt to rescue the Iranian nuclear agreement (JCPoA) is played out, on the brink of the precipice.
On Tuesday April 6, the Joint Commission of the signatory countries – Iran, Germany, France, United Kingdom, China, Russia, plus the European Union (EU) – met for two hours at the Grand Hotel, without the United States , left the agreement in 2018. Two groups of experts were tasked with continuing the discussions until April 9, the date of a new meeting of the Commission, and each setting a roadmap. These experts will focus, on the one hand, on the lifting of American sanctions, and on the other hand, on bringing Iran’s nuclear program back into conformity, after two years of successive violations.
The aim is to push each side – American and Iranian – to take small steps, while waiting for them to speak to each other directly. “The Iranians have only one language: “lift the sanctions” “, sighs a European diplomat, believing that “Everyone is sailing by sight”, without medium-term visibility. For Washington, a unilateral lifting is excluded. State Department spokesman Ned Price nevertheless called the Viennese day a“Constructive step”. This same qualifier was used on the Iranian side.
The challenge for the Biden administration is considerable: how to break the real wall of sanctions, knowingly built under Donald Trump to prevent any future rehabilitation of the JCPoA? On January 12, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, about to leave his post, welcomed the adoption of 1,500 sanctions against individuals and entities, “Depriving the regime of $ 70 billion [59 milliards d’euros] ” of income.
Iranians’ maximalist posture
However, the Iranians do not want to be satisfied with symbols or one-off checks. Abbas Araghchi, who is leading his country’s delegation to Vienna, explained that Iran had declined an American offer: $ 1 billion released – out of the $ 7 billion frozen by South Korea – against the suspension of the enrichment of 20% uranium.
Tehran believes that the signatories of the JCPoA in 2015 broke their word because the agreement provided for a complete lifting of sanctions. The E3 countries (Germany, France, United Kingdom) are still seeking to promote the Instex exchange mechanism, thought for two years to circumvent American sanctions. But this only gave rise to a single transaction, amounting to 400,000 euros, in March 2020. The Europeans consider that the Iranians did not want to seize Instex, which they consider to be a stopgap, because it does not cover the oil sector.
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