Iran nuclear talks on brink of collapse, diplomats warn

Western negotiators have said that talks to rescue the Iran nuclear deal are on the point of collapse because Tehran’s nuclear programme is advancing faster than diplomatic progress towards an agreement.

After talks on Thursday, Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French foreign minister, said the discussions were in a “life-threatening emergency”.

“There is partial, timid and slow progress, but negotiations cannot continue at such a slow pace while, in parallel, Iran’s nuclear programme advances so rapidly,” he said.

President Biden said this week that the talks were moving forward and it was not time to give up. However, European negotiators have been warning for months that there is little sign of a deal being struck any time soon.

Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said that western powers might withdraw from the talks soon. “We are indeed at a decisive moment,” he said. “There is real urgency and it’s really now a matter of weeks, where we determine whether or not we can return to mutual compliance with the agreement.”

Biden promised to re-enter the nuclear agreement, which his predecessor Donald Trump tore up in 2018, but asked for extra guarantees from Iran that this would lead to talks on a broader range of security issues, including its wider Middle East policies.

Iran refused and, as it continued to enrich uranium to high levels, demanded extra concessions from the United States in return. Last year it began producing uranium enriched to 60 per cent purity for the first time, not far short of the 90 per cent needed for a nuclear weapon.

A particular sticking point in the latest talks is its insistence that Biden sign a written guarantee that the US will never again pull out of the agreement and reimpose sanctions.

Biden says that no US president can bind their successor. The issue is especially important because Trump may stand for the presidency again in 2024. Even if he does not, most alternative Republican candidates are equally hawkish on Iran.

The talks have been further held up by Iranian presidential elections. The victorious candidate, President Raisi, is a hardliner who has expressed scepticism about the deal.

Although Russia expressed some impatience with Iran last year, in recent weeks the Kremlin has revived its backing for the Tehran position. Raisi flew to Moscow to meet President Putin in the Kremlin on Wednesday.

China, the other participant in the talks, has played a less prominent role. On Thursday it registered its first open imports of Iranian oil since Biden took office, indicating that it would not be bound by US sanctions. It is already thought to be importing 500,000 barrels of Iranian oil a day without publicly registering it.