TEHRAN —
Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog said Saturday they had agreed on an approach for resolving
issues crucial to reviving the country's 2015 nuclear accord with world powers —
but new Russian demands may delay a deal.
اضافة اعلان
The announcement came shortly before Russia
said it would seek guarantees from the US before it backs the deal, potentially
scuppering hopes an agreement could be wrapped up quickly.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi said the UN agency and Iran "did have a number of
important matters that we needed... to resolve", but that they had now
"decided to try a practical, pragmatic approach" to overcome them.
Atomic Energy Organization of Iran president
Mohammed Eslami said the two sides had come to the "conclusion that some
documents which need to be exchanged between the IAEA and the Iranian
organization should be exchanged" by May 22.
However, addressing reporters on his return
to
Vienna, Grossi said that he didn't "have a crystal ball" to
predict how the process would end.
The aim is to settle outstanding questions
that the IAEA has about the past presence of nuclear material at undeclared
sites in Iran.
Grossi stressed that there was "no artificial
deadline, no pre-defined outcome".
"If Iran does not cooperate... I will
not cease to put questions and continue the process," he added.
Tehran has said that the closure of the
matter is a pre-requisite for a deal to revive the 2015 nuclear accord with
world powers, also known as the
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Russian role
Grossi's visit to Tehran came a day after
Britain, one of the parties to parallel talks on the deal in Vienna, indicated
an agreement was close.
But Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
said on Saturday that Moscow, itself slapped with sanctions over its invasion
of Ukraine, would seek guarantees from Washington before backing the nuclear
deal.
Lavrov said Russia had requested that the
US give it written guarantees that Ukraine-related sanctions "will not in any
way harm our rights to free, fully-fledged trade and economic and investment
cooperation, military-technical cooperation with Iran".
Russia is party to the ongoing talks in the
Austrian capital to restore the agreement along with Britain, China, France,
and Germany. The US is participating indirectly.
As with the original JCPOA in 2015, Moscow
is expected to play a role in the implementation of any fresh deal with Iran,
for example by receiving shipments of enriched uranium from Iran.
The 2015 nuclear deal has been hanging by a
thread since then US president Donald Trump pulled out in 2018 and re-imposed
sweeping sanctions, including on Iran's vital oil and gas exports.
The landmark accord was aimed at
guaranteeing Tehran could not develop a nuclear weapon — something it has
always denied wanting to do.
Iran said this week that it was ready to
raise its crude exports to pre-sanctions levels within one to two months of a
deal being signed.
'Difficult issues'
Iranian international relations analyst
Fayaz Zahed said the government needed to be very careful that
Moscow did not
scupper a deal in defense of its own interests.
"Now that Russia is under sanctions, it
is perhaps no longer interested in resolving the Iran nuclear issue, a position
that could be very damaging," he said.
The coming days are seen as pivotal by the
West because of the rate at which Iran is making nuclear advances.
Its stockpile of enriched uranium has now
reached more than 15 times the limit set out in the 2015 accord, the IAEA said
this week.
Several observers have suggested the West
could leave the negotiating table and chalk the deal up to a failure if a
compromise is not reached in the coming days.
On Thursday, US State Department deputy
spokeswoman Jalina Porter said negotiators were "close to a possible
deal", but that "a number of difficult issues" remained
unresolved.
However, "if Iran shows seriousness, we
can and should reach an understanding of mutual return to full implementation
of the JCPOA within days", she said.
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