Iran to resume nuclear talks after US-Israeli strikes

The first talks between Iran and European powers since June’s US and Israeli attacks on Iran are set to take place on July 25th, according to The National via Reuters on July 21st, citing Iranian state media.

The negotiations will focus on Tehran’s nuclear programme. Iranian diplomats will meet with representatives from the E3—France, the UK, and Germany—after the three European powers warned they would consider reinstating sanctions if Iran failed to return to the negotiating table.

“In response to the request of European countries, Iran has agreed to hold a new round of talks,” said foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghai, as quoted by state TV.

On June 13th, Israel launched a series of surprise attacks on Iran, targeting key military and nuclear facilities. The US followed with its own strikes on June 22nd, hitting the uranium enrichment site at Fordow, along with nuclear facilities in Isfahan and Natanz.

While Iran and the US had previously engaged in indirect nuclear negotiations mediated by Oman, those discussions were halted after the joint Israeli-American military campaign. Notably, just one day before the US strikes, Iranian representatives had met with the E3 in Geneva.

On July 20th, Ali Larijani, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader on nuclear issues, held a surprise meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Mr Larijani “conveyed assessments of the escalating situation in the Middle East and around the Iranian nuclear programme.” Mr Putin, in turn, reiterated Russia’s “well-known positions on how to stabilise the situation in the region and on the political settlement of the Iranian nuclear programme.”

The current tensions are unfolding against the backdrop of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—a deal under which Iran agreed to scale back its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief. The agreement unravelled in 2018, when President Donald Trump, during his first presidency, withdrew the US from the deal and reimposed sanctions.

Now, the E3 have threatened to trigger the JCPOA’s “snapback” mechanism, which would allow them to reimpose sanctions if Iran is found to be non-compliant. But the Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi rejected the move, stating on social media that the West had “absolutely no moral, legal grounds” to reactivate sanctions.

“Through their actions and statements, including providing political and material support to the recent unprovoked and illegal military aggression of the Israeli regime and the US… the E3 have relinquished their role as ‘participants’ in the JCPOA,” Araghchi said.

He added that any attempt to bring back the terminated UN Security Council resolutions would be “null and void.”

“Iran has shown that it is capable of defeating any delusional ‘dirty work’ but has always been prepared to reciprocate meaningful diplomacy in good faith,” Araghchi said.

The National via Reuters, Maghrebi.org