Category Archives: Iran nuclear deal

Iran nuclear deal talks stall as Tehran urges US to accept terms

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No sign of breakthrough as Iran continues to advance ability to make nuclear weapon

Marathon talks to revive the Iran nuclear deal have hit a new roadblock, with Iran accusing the US of refusing to make the necessary political decisions to entrench the agreement in international law or to broaden the scope of economic sanctions that would be lifted.

The issue has dogged the talks in Vienna between the west, Russia, Iran and China – which have been under way since February – from the outset. There is no sign that the eighth round of negotiations, once intended to be the final round, has reached the breakthrough some had been expecting.

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Iran nuclear talks deadlock risks dangerous vacuum

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Analysis: As clock runs down on Vienna talks, key obstacles remain to be cleared by Tehran and the west

The countdown to the end of the six-month-long talks in Vienna on the future of the Iran nuclear deal has begun. No deadline has been formally set, but if there is no progress in less than two weeks the process will come to an end leaving a dangerous vacuum.

The White House has already been rolling the pitch preparing its political lines for a breakdown by saying the US withdrawal from the agreement by Donald Trump in 2018 has proved to be a disaster. If there is no agreement, the Biden team intend Trump will take the blame.

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Why does Austria stay silent over dual national’s arrest six years ago in Iran?

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Iranian-Austrian Kamran Ghaderi is serving a 10-year sentence for spying and his family are still waiting for answers

Six years ago on New Year’s Day, an Iranian-Austrian IT businessman said goodbye to his wife and three children and boarded a flight from Vienna to Tehran via Istanbul. Kamran Ghaderi was due to return five to six days later, but instead, on 2 January 2016, he was arrested and has now spent six years in Evin prison in Tehran.

In October 2016, he was sentenced to 10 years for spying for a foreign country at a trial in which neither he nor his lawyer were able to say more than two words. His sentencing was based on a confession he gave under what his wife, Harika, says was torture, in the belief she might be in danger. No written judgment has ever been given to his family.

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Iran nuclear deal: eighth round of talks begins in Vienna

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Tehran is keen to verify US sanctions have genuinely been lifted

An eighth round of talks on reviving the Iran nuclear deal has begun in Vienna, with Iran saying participants have been largely working from an acceptable common draft text and that its team was willing to stay as long as it takes to reach an agreement.

The Iranian foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, said he wanted the focus of the coming round of talks to be on how Tehran could verify US sanctions had genuinely been lifted. The landmark 2015 deal, from which Donald Trump withdrew the US, had lifted sanctions on Iran in return for controls on its civilian nuclear programme.

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Efforts to save Iran nuclear deal ‘reaching the end of the road’

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European negotiators issue warning as talks adjourned to allow Iranian envoy to return for consultation

Attempts to salvage the 2015 Iran nuclear deal are “rapidly reaching the end of the road”, European negotiators have warned, as talks in Vienna adjourned to allow the Iranian negotiator to return home for consultation – a pause described by the Europeans as disappointing.

“We hope that Iran is in a position to resume the talks quickly, and to engage constructively so that talks can move at a faster pace,” France, Germany and the UK said. “As we have said, there are weeks not months before the deal’s core non-proliferation benefits are lost. We are rapidly reaching the end of the road for this negotiation.

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Israel warns diplomacy proving fruitless in Iran nuclear talks

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Officials hopeful that US and European nations will agree Tehran is in breach of its obligations

Tehran’s approach to talks on its nuclear programme in Vienna has become so uncompromising according to Israel’s lead diplomat on Iran, Joshua Zarka, that they “have reached the last stretch of diplomacy”.

Israeli officials said they were hopeful that the US and European nations would agree to put an emergency motion to the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stating that Iran was in breach of its obligations under the non-proliferation treaty (NPT) and the 2015 nuclear deal.

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Iran nuclear deal pulled back from brink of collapse as talks resume in Vienna

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Cautious optimism as Tehran revises its position after pressure from Russia and China

Efforts to revive the Iran nuclear deal have been hauled back from the brink of collapse as Tehran revised its stance after pressure from Russia and China and clear warnings that the EU and the US were preparing to walk away.

The cautiously optimistic assessment came at the start of the seventh round of talks on the future of the nuclear deal in Vienna. It follows what was seen as a disastrous set of talks last week in which the US and the EU claimed Iran had walked back on compromises reached in previous rounds.

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US seeks Russian and Chinese support to salvage Iran nuclear deal

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Iran’s natural allies are said to have been surprised by how much it had gone back on its own compromises

The US is hoping pressure from Russia, China and some Arab Gulf states may yet persuade Iran to moderate its negotiating stance in regards to the steps the Biden administration must take before both sides return to the 2015 nuclear deal.

Talks in Vienna faltered badly last week, when the new hardline Iranian administration increased its levels of uranium enrichment and tabled proposals that US officials said at the weekend were “not serious”since they had gone back on all the progress made in the previous round of talks.

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Iran walks back all prior concessions in nuclear talks, US official says

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  • Session was first with delegates from new Tehran government
  • Iran says aerial explosion over Natanz was air defence test

Iran walked back all compromises made in previous talks on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, pocketed compromises made by others and asked for more in its latest proposals, a senior US state department official told reporters on Saturday.

Iran continues to accelerate its nuclear program in pretty provocative ways and China and Russia were taken aback at how far Iran had walked back its proposals in talks in Vienna, the official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

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Iran preparing to enrich uranium, nuclear deal talks in Vienna told

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Tehran accuses Israel of ‘trumpeting lies to poison’ talks aimed at reviving 2015 pact

Iran sought to heighten pressure on western negotiators in Vienna through increasing its use of advanced centrifuges as talks on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal carried on for a third day on Wednesday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency reported on Wednesday that Iran had started the process of enriching uranium to up to 20% purity with one cascade, or cluster, of 166 advanced IR-6 machines at the Fordow fuel enrichment plant, which is about 20 miles north-east of Qom. Those machines are far more efficient than the first-generation IR-1.

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Iran nuclear talks to resume with world powers after five-month hiatus

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Expectations of salvaging 2015 deal low amid fears Iran is covertly boosting nuclear programme

Talks between world powers and Iran on salvaging the 2015 nuclear deal will resume in Vienna on Monday after a five-month hiatus, but expectations of a breakthrough are low.

The talks could liberate Iran from hundreds of western economic sanctions or lead to a tightening of the economic noose and the intensified threat of military attacks by Israel.

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Nothing can stop Iran’s World Cup heroes. Except war, of course…

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The ‘Persian Leopards’ are going great guns on the football field, but at nuclear talks in Vienna a far more dangerous game is being played

There is a strikingly topsy-turvy, Saturnalian feel to recent qualifying matches for the 2022 football World Cup. Saudi Arabia (population 35 million) beat China (population 1.4 billion). Canada lead the US in their group. Four-time winners Italy failed to defeat lowly Northern Ireland.

Pursuing an unbeaten run full of political symbolism, unfancied Iran are also over the moon after subjugating the neighbourhood, as is their habit. Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and the UAE all succumbed to the soar‑away “Persian Leopards”.

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Iran sets date to resume talks on nuclear deal after five-month gap

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Western countries and especially US are keen for sessions beginning on 29 November to reach quick result

Iran has agreed to resume talks with world powers on reviving a nuclear deal on 29 November after a five-month gap, with the US urging a quick resolution.

The announcement of indirect negotiations in Vienna comes as pressure mounts on Iran, with western nations warning that Tehran’s nuclear work is advancing to dangerous levels and Israel threatening to attack.

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US would only quit Iran nuclear deal if Tehran were to renege, Biden pledges

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President makes commitment alongside Germany, France and UK not to repeat Donald Trump’s walkout on agreement

Joe Biden has given a pledge that if the US returns to the Iran nuclear agreement, it will only subsequently leave if Tehran clearly breaks the terms of the deal.

The US president made the commitment, which addresses one of Iran’s key negotiating demands, in a joint statement issued with Germany, France and the UK. The statement followed a meeting on the margins of the G20 in Rome attended by Biden, Germany’s Angela Merkel, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Britain’s Boris Johnson.

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Iran says more than 120kg of uranium enriched to 20%

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Announcement comes amid signs Tehran may be open to resuming stalled talks on 2015 nuclear deal

Iran has amassed more than 120kg of 20% enriched uranium, well above the level agreed to in the 2015 deal with world powers, the head of the country’s atomic energy agency has told state television.

“We have passed 120 kilograms,” said Mohammad Eslami, head of Iran’s atomic energy organisation. “We have more than that figure. Our people know well that [western powers] were meant to give us the enriched fuel at 20% to use in the Tehran reactor, but they haven’t done so.

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Britain must repay £400m debt and lift sanctions, Tehran tells Liz Truss

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UK meeting with Iranian foreign secretary coincides with 2,000th day of detention for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Britain should repay its four decade-old £400m debt to Iran and take serious steps to lift sanctions, Iran has told the British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, in the first meeting between the two countries at foreign secretary level since 2018.

Truss’s meeting with Hossein Amir-Abdollahian came in the week that the British-Iranian dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe marked her 2,000th day in detention in Iran. She is now staying with her mother in Iran, pending an appeal on her additional sentence of one year.

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Iran’s president denounces US sanctions as ‘crimes against humanity’

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Ultra-conservative Ebrahim Raisi uses debut on international stage to deliver sustained attack on Washington

Iran’s new ultra-conservative president has used his debut on the international stage to deliver a sustained assault on US, denouncing sanctions as “crimes against humanity” and hailing what he called the end of Washington’s hegemony.

“Sanctions are the US new way of war with the nations of the world,” President Ebrahim Raisi told the UN general assembly in a pre-recorded address from Tehran.

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Iran agrees deal with UN on monitoring of nuclear programme

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Talks aim to revitalise stalled inspections process and could ease path towards lifting of US sanctions

Iran has agreed to allow UN nuclear inspectors to install new memory cards into its cameras monitoring the country’s controversial nuclear programme in a move that could keep the inspection process on life support, and even ease a path towards a lifting of US sanctions.

Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, struck the deal in Tehran on Sunday after two hours of talks and will report to the IAEA’s board meeting on Monday.

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Iran nuclear talks to resume as IAEA head returns to Tehran

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Rafael Grossi will meet with Iranian officials, in his first visit to the country since president Ebrahim Raisi took office

Iran says that the head of the International Atomic Energy Organisation (IAEA) is due to arrive in the country for talks with Iranian officials.

Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s envoy to the IAEA, said in a tweet that Rafael Grossi is arriving on Saturday, and will travel to Tehran. He is scheduled to meet Iran’s vice-president and the head of the country’s atomic organization, Mohammad Eslami, on Sunday.

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West to decide on Iran censure after damning UN nuclear watchdog report

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IAEA says new hardline government in Tehran making oversight of nuclear programme impossible

European powers and the US will decide on Friday whether to censure Iran in response to a damning report by the UN nuclear inspectorate the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) showing that the new hardline government in Tehran had made it impossible for inspectors to oversee the country’s nuclear programme.

The Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, has warned any such censure motion, or a reference to the UN security council, could delay or prevent Iran returning to the talks in Vienna on how the US and Iran could come back into compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal.

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