WASHINGTON – The fragile discussions over the revival of the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal were about two weeks away from reaching a conclusion in June, but several complicated items remain unresolved, according to a senior German government official participating in the talks.
Earlier this year, signatories of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, began the first of what would become six rounds of all-day negotiations at multiple hotels across Vienna.
“In March our determination and that of our American friends was to get this done quickly. It took longer than we thought. But I think, in June, another two weeks of serious negotiation and political will, we could have had it,” the senior German government official said.
Until that point, the progress had been “quite substantial,” the official said.
“As it always is in these kinds of negotiations, the most complicated points were left to the end and we’re not resolved, but I would say, we started with a blank piece of paper and by June we had four different texts and something like 1,520 pages of the agreement hammered out,” the official explained.
The official requested anonymity in order to discuss the negotiations candidly.
The pause in talks follows the election of Iran’s new president, Ebrahim Raisi, who will succeed Hassan Rouhani this week.
The 2015 JCPOA, brokered in part by the Obama administration, lifted sanctions on Iran that had crippled its economy and cut its oil exports roughly in half. Alongside the United States, France, Germany, the U.K., Russia and China were also signatories of the agreement.
Iran agreed to dismantle some of its nuclear program and open its facilities to more extensive international inspections in exchange for billions of dollars in sanctions relief.
In 2018, then-President Donald Trump kept a campaign promise and unilaterally withdrew the United States from the JCPOA, calling it the “worst deal ever.” Trump also reintroduced sanctions on Tehran that had been previously lifted. Following Washington’s exit from the landmark nuclear deal, other signatories of the pact have struggled to keep the agreement alive.
The Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign hampered Iran’s already strained economy and slashed oil exports, bringing tensions between Tehran and Washington to a boiling point.
The Biden administration has since sought a return to the deal and recently completed a sixth round of negotiations in Vienna.
Last month, a senior Biden administration official told reporters on condition of anonymity that the U.S. negotiating team had not reached a deal after the six rounds of talks. The official added that the U.S. would enter the seventh round of talks with the other signatories, also referred to as the P5+1.
When pressed for a timeline, the official declined to elaborate on any scheduling details for when negotiations would resume.
