US Takes A Wait And See Approach To Iran's Claim Of Returning To Talks
The Biden Administration said Wednesday it is taking a wait and see approach to Iran's claims that is ready to rejoin multilateral talks on its nuclear program.
The Biden Administration said Wednesday it is taking a wait and see approach to Iran's claims that is ready to rejoin multilateral talks on its nuclear program.
Tehran's chief negotiator in the talks said on Twitter on Wednesday that Iran agrees "to start negotiations before the end of November" after what he called very constructive dialogue with a European Union negotiator.
Ali Bagheri Kani said "an exact date would be announced in the course of the next week."
At the same time, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Tehran told reporters that Iran expects to see “goodwill” from President Joe Biden and he should release $10 billion in Iran’s frozen funds.
At the White House, Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the Iranians have made "similar comments over the last several days," adding the White House will "leave it up to the Europeans and our negotiators to determine when the next step would be."
Psaki said the US remains committed to "pursuing a diplomatic path forward."
Iran withdrew from negotiations in June and has refused to return despite repeated calls by the United States and its European allies. Meanwhile it is enriching uranium beyond the 2015 nuclear deal limits that worries other countries.
With reporting by AP
Iran informed the International Atomic Energy Agency last week it had temporarily fed uranium enriched to up to 20% into extra “single machine and intermediate cascades...without any collection of products”, the IAEA said in a statement, adding it later verified Iran had begun feeding just one IR-6 centrifuge but the product was not being collected.
The move is likely to help Iran refine its knowledge of the enrichment process - something Western powers generally condemn because it is irreversible - but since this time the product is not being collected it will not immediately accelerate Iran's production of uranium enriched to close to weapons-grade.
Iran suspended multilateral talks in Vienna in June aimed at restoring the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 nuclear agreement that curbed its nuclear activities. In the meantime, it continues its uranium enrichment, stockpiling 20-percent and 60-percent enriched fissile material.
The JCPOA put a 3.65-percent enrichment cap on Iran. The 20-percent enrichment level is already high and the 60-percent degree of purity has no civilian use.
The latest move has, however, prompted the International Atomic Energy Agency to "increase the frequency and intensity of its safeguards activities" at the above-ground Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP) at Natanz, the IAEA said in a report seen by Reuters. As of around 90% uranium is considered weapons-grade.
The IAEA said in a statement outlining the report that Iran informed it last week of changes to the setup of centrifuges, machines that enrich uranium, at the plant - Iran would feed uranium enriched to up to 20% into limited numbers of extra centrifuges without collecting the product.
"On 25 October 2021, the Agency verified that Iran began feeding (uranium hexafluoride gas) enriched up to 20% U-235 into a single IR-6 centrifuge in R&D line 2 at PFEP and that the resulting product and tails streams were being re-combined," the IAEA report said, meaning that after separating the enriched product it was mixed with the centrifuge's waste and not kept.
Iran had said it planned to also feed uranium enriched to up to 20% into other single centrifuges or small- to medium-sized cascades, or clusters, of machines on the same line, but those were not being fed at the time, the IAEA said.
Then-U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned the pact in 2018 and reimposed harsh U.S. sanctions. About a year later, Iran started violating some of the deal's limits on uranium enrichment.
President Joe Biden announced before his election that he intended to restore the JCPOA and in April the US, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia and China began talks in Vienna.
Iran has also curtailed IAEA’s monitoring activities since February, demanding that US lift sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy.
Report by Reuters
