Iran, U.S. Close to Reviving Iranian Nuclear Deal

The U.S. and Iran on Thursday were closing in on an agreement to restore the 2015 nuclear deal, although officials from both countries warned final issues still needed to be nailed down in the coming hours.

After weeks of intense negotiations in Vienna involving the U.S. and Iran, and Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China, senior diplomats said they were now within reach of an agreement that would restore the 2015 deal. That pact lifted most international sanctions on Tehran in exchange for strict but temporary restrictions on Iran’s nuclear work.

“We are very close to an agreement,” chief British negotiator Stephanie Al-Qaq said on Twitter late Thursday. “Now we have to take a few final steps.”

U.S. and Iranian officials cautioned there was at least one big issue that still needed solving: Iran has been pushing for more sanctions relief if the nuclear deal is restored. In particular, it wants the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to be taken off Washington’s most significant terror sanctions list, the Foreign Terrorist Organization.

The U.S. has long pushed back against the demand given the Revolutionary Guard’s role across the Middle East backing designated terrorist groups such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah. A final decision would almost certainly need to be cleared at the highest levels in the Biden administration.

However, it is almost certain under any restored nuclear deal that the Biden administration will lift sanctions on dozens of terrorist-listed people and entities, a move that is already sparking criticism in Washington.

Iranian officials also cautioned that talks hadn’t crossed the finish line.

“Nobody can say the deal is done until all the outstanding remaining issues are resolved,” said Saeed Khatibzadeh, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Twitter. “Extra efforts needed.”

The U.S. left the nuclear deal in 2018, with former President Donald Trump saying it did too little to stop Iran’s pathway to a nuclear weapons. Since 2019, Iran has expanded its nuclear work. On Thursday, the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran had doubled its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, leaving the country close to amassing enough weapons-grade nuclear fuel for a bomb.

The Vienna talks have focused on agreeing on the steps Tehran and Washington would need to take to restore the pact.

European and U.S. diplomats have said a deal needs to be wrapped up in the next few days or they will exit the negotiations. Time is running short, they say, because Iran’s nuclear advances mean it could soon be impossible to recapture the main benefit of the deal for the West, Russia and China—keeping Iran far enough away from having enough nuclear material for the bomb.

Under a restored deal, Iran’s “breakout time”—the duration needed to amass enough nuclear fuel or a bomb—could be as little as six months, U.S. officials say, compared with around 12 months when the original deal came into force in January 2016.

A first sign that negotiations were advancing came Thursday morning when the IAEA said its Director General Rafael Grossi would travel to Tehran for talks to resolve one of the final issues standing in the way of a deal.

Mr. Grossi is seeking an agreement with Iranian senior officials about how to handle a probe into undeclared nuclear material], found in Iran. Iranian officials say they want to eliminate that investigation as part of a deal to revive the nuclear pact, something that Mr. Grossi and Western officials have said is unacceptable.

The IAEA is considering some kind of road map, Western diplomats said, which could offer Iran reassurance the investigation won’t be open-ended if Iran steps up its cooperation in answering the agency’s questions about its nuclear work.

Iran wants the probe closed, Iranian and Western officials say, because the IAEA could censure Tehran if it doesn’t cooperate and that could open the way for the issue to be sent up to the U.N. Security Council, where international sanctions could be imposed.

Ahead of Mr. Grossi’s trip to Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called him to press his government’s concerns about the nuclear deal and its position that the nuclear probe be continued. They agreed to speak again after the Tehran trip and Mr. Grossi will be visiting Israel in the near future, a senior Israeli official said.

By Thursday evening, European negotiators were posting on social media pictures of their teams at Vienna’s plush Palais Coburg hotel where the talks take place, with messages of thanks for the hard work.

Early this week, talks grew tense after Iran’s top negotiator returned from his capital and put back on the table demands that Tehran had previously made. They included demands for guarantees that if the U.S. quits the deal again, Iran’s contracts with Western firms won’t be ripped up.

The U.S. and Europeans have said repeatedly that they can’t offer guarantees about what a future U.S. administration would do. By Wednesday evening, Western diplomats said Iran seemed no longer to be pressing the issue so strongly.

Failure to reach a deal could lead Iran to move closer to nuclear weapons capabilities although Tehran has always said its nuclear program is for purely peaceful purposes.

Western officials don’t believe Iran has fully mastered building a nuclear warhead or fixing it to a missile.

However on Thursday in a confidential report circulated to members, the IAEA reported that as of Feb. 19, Iran has 33.2 kilograms of 60% enriched material, up from 17.7 kilograms in early November when the agency last reported. It is the most highly enriched uranium ever recorded for Iran.

Iran would need around 40 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium to produce enough weapons-grade nuclear fuel for a weapon.

Under a restored nuclear deal, Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium would be capped at 202.8 kilograms until 2031, with enrichment levels limited to 3.67%.