US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Wednesday that point was running out for Iran to return to a nuclear deal after a scathing report by the UN atomic watchdog and Tehran’s signals that it might take a short time to return to talks.
The IAEA released a strongly-worded report Tuesday saying monitoring tasks in Iran are “seriously undermined” after Tehran suspended a number of the UN agency’s inspections of its nuclear activities.
After ultraconservative Ebrahim Raisi took over as new president of the country, Iran had also suggested that talks aimed toward reviving the stalled JCPOA were unlikely to resume for 2 to 3 months.
“I’m not getting to put a date thereon but we are becoming closer to the purpose at which a strict return to compliance with the JCPOA doesn’t reproduce the advantages that that agreement achieved,” Blinken told reporters in Germany in response to an issue on the purpose at which it might not be possible to return to a deal.
Germany found the delay signalled by Tehran “far too long”, secretary of state Heiko Maas said.
The German minister said he had telephoned his new counterpart in Tehran to urge him to “return more swiftly to the negotiating table”.
Nevertheless, Maas said Berlin still expects the new Iranian government to still support results from negotiations that had taken place thus far .
Raisi became Iran’s president in early August, taking up from moderate Hassan Rouhani, the principal architect on the Iranian side of the 2015 agreement.
The 2015 deal offered Iran an easing of Western and UN sanctions reciprocally for tight controls on its nuclear programme, monitored by the UN.
In retaliation for former US President Donald Trump’s withdrawal three years ago and his subsequent imposition of swingeing sanctions, Iran in effect abandoned most of its commitments under the deal.