Roadmap to nuclear agreement collides with uranium dilemma and Russian demands
After eight rounds of negotiations
in Vienna over nearly 11 months to find solutions to revive the 2015 nuclear
agreement between Iran and the West, in which the 4+1 group, and indirectly the
United States, participated, Tehran has announced that it has agreed to a
roadmap with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to resolve all
contentious issues.
According to what was announced by
Tehran, the roadmap is scheduled to expire by the end of June, and during that
period, the parties are expected to reach solutions that bypass the obstacles
obstructing the revival of the agreement that former US President Donald Trump
withdrew from in 2018.
Uranium dilemma
Among the contentious issues
obstructing the agreement, which Tehran wants to resolve in order to achieve
additional gains from the agreement, comes the issue of uranium traces that
were found in old undeclared sites, which the IAEA is seeking to obtain answers
about from Iran as to how the uranium traces arrived at these sites.
The IAEA had discussed the issue of
uranium and issued several reports that said Iran had failed to provide
satisfactory explanations about the origins of the traces of processed uranium,
and the agency considered that finding traces of uranium in undeclared sites
confirms that there were nuclear materials that Iran did not disclose to the
agency.
Iran’s adherence to closing this
issue and linking it to the nuclear agreement comes at a time when Western
officials believe that the issue of uranium traces is an issue separate from
the agreement, but Tehran may exploit the current developments, especially
concerning the Ukrainian crisis and the West’s need to complete the agreement,
in order to achieve more gains and impose new conditions.
It seems that the IAEA may
reconsider the issue, especially in light of the statements of IAEA Director
General Rafael Grossi, who said, “We decided to try a practical and pragmatic
approach to resolving these (outstanding) issues in order to allow our experts
to consider them in a way that is systematic, in-depth and comprehensive.”
Grossi's statements coincided with
those of Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran
(AEOI), during a joint press conference between them, where the latter said,
“We agreed to provide the International Atomic Energy Agency with documents
related to the outstanding issues between Tehran and the agency by the end of
June.”
Grossi had arrived in Tehran late Friday,
March 4, to discuss one of the last thorny issues impeding the revival of the
agreement, which restricted Iran's capabilities to enrich uranium in exchange
for lifting economic sanctions imposed on the country, making it difficult for
Tehran to develop materials for nuclear weapons.
New obstacle
At a time when the parties
participating in the negotiations considered that the roadmap might make
progress to achieve the nuclear agreement, a new obstacle appeared that might
hinder those efforts, as Russia requested written guarantees from the United
States that sanctions against Moscow would not harm its cooperation with Iran.
According to Reuters, the Russian
request was responded to by an Iranian official, who considered that these
demands are not constructive to the talks between Tehran and the world powers
aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear agreement, adding that “the Russians put
this request on the table two days ago. We realize that Russia, by changing its
position in the Vienna talks, wants to secure its interests elsewhere. This
step is not constructive to the Vienna talks on the nuclear deal.”
