Negotiations in Vienna to try to salvage the 2015 Iran nuclear deal will not resume until the new government takes office in Tehran in August, a senior Iranian official confirmed on Saturday (July 17th).
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We are in a period of transition (...) Therefore, the discussions in Vienna must obviously await our new government,
" writes Abbas Araghchi, deputy foreign minister and head of the Iranian negotiating team, on Twitter.
The sixth session of these talks ended at the end of June and the date of the seventh session has not yet been set.
Winner of the June presidential election, the ultra-conservative Ebrahim Raïssi must be sworn in before Parliament on August 5 to succeed the moderate Hassan Rohani, whose election in 2013 led to the conclusion two years later of an agreement with the international community after twelve years of crisis around the Iranian nuclear issue.
Concluded in Vienna, this pact offers Tehran relief from Western and UN sanctions in exchange for its commitment never to acquire atomic weapons, and a drastic reduction in its nuclear program, placed under the inspection program. the strictest ever set up by the IAEA.
But the agreement was torpedoed in 2018 by the decision of the former President of the United States Donald Trump to withdraw from it and to reinstate the American sanctions that the text had made it possible to lift.
In response, Iran has gradually since 2019 renounced most of its commitments restricting its controversial nuclear activities.
Made possible by Joe Biden's accession to the White House in January, the Vienna talks aim to reintegrate the United States into the agreement.
The envisaged solution involves the suspension of American sanctions, of which Tehran is asking for the lifting, in exchange for Iran returning to strict compliance with its commitments.
Hassan Rouhani, who has repeatedly promised the Iranians to obtain the lifting of these sanctions before the end of his mandate, hinted on Wednesday that he would not succeed and that the negotiations would not be concluded before the end of his term. mandate.
He also insinuated that his government did not have all the latitude necessary to bring these discussions to a conclusion.
The president's prerogatives are limited in Iran, most of the power being in the hands of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the ultimate decision-maker on most sovereign issues, including the nuclear issue.