Iran starts new talks today over its nuclear program. Here's what to know.
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The agreement, in which Iran agreed to limit its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, expires in mid-October. The Europeans are willing to extend the deadline on restoring the sanctions because once they are restored, they are useless as leverage.
What's at stake
Little is expected to emerge from Friday's meeting, which is at a lower level and will not include foreign ministers. But some deadlines are looming. The Europeans have said that they will move to restore sanctions by the end of August if Iran does not respond with a serious effort at a new deal.
Iran, Europe and the United States all have some leverage in renewed negotiations. The main sticking point, as it has been for many months, is the American insistence that Iran give up enrichment of uranium altogether and Iran's refusal to do so. Though damaged, Iran's nuclear program is hardly destroyed, and it has gained plenty of knowledge about nuclear enrichment that cannot be bombed away.
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Without progress in negotiations to extend the deadline on restoring sanctions, any U.N. restrictions could vanish for decades thanks to the difficulty of achieving unanimity in a Security Council where Russia and China both hold vetoes, said Ellie Geranmayeh, an Iran expert with the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Even an extension would require all the members of the Security Council to agree, including the United States, which may be a hard sell given the deep distrust of Iran in the Trump administration.
Geranmayeh has recommended a one-time, one-year extension, to allow 'breathing time for talks with Washington' and for the International Atomic Energy Agency, the nuclear watchdog of the United Nations, to gauge the state of Iran's nuclear program and stockpile of enriched uranium.
Where Iran is now
This week, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi of Iran said that the damage to the country's nuclear facilities had been 'serious and severe' and that enrichment had now been stopped, but he vowed, as he has before, that Iran would not give up the right to enrich uranium.
The Europeans are trying to use the threat of these 'snapback' sanctions to get Iran to restore cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog and to negotiate a new deal to limit or eliminate nuclear enrichment. Iran has regularly insisted that it is not pursuing a weapon but will not stop enrichment, as it has the legal right to do under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and that it would agree to strict limits on that enrichment of the kind laid out in the 2015 deal.
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Iran has said that if the sanctions are restored, it will leave the Nonproliferation Treaty and stop all cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog. For their part, both Israel and the United States have said they are prepared to bomb Iran again to prevent Tehran from making a nuclear weapon.
Iran's position was restated in a briefing to reporters at the United Nations on Wednesday by the country's deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, who will be at the Istanbul talks. He said Iran was open to further negotiations with either or both the Europeans and the Americans under certain conditions, including a promise not to attack Iran again.
Where other powers stand
President Donald Trump and the Israelis have insisted that Iran give up any nuclear enrichment, but some of the Europeans are less adamant so long as limits on enrichment are severe and monitored more closely than they are now. But they also are concerned that Trump, faced with the complications of a deal, may have lost interest, believing that the bombing has solved the problem for now, Geranmayeh said.
Iranian officials met this week with its allies Russia and China. One topic, according to Iran's foreign ministry, was how to prevent or mitigate the consequences of any restored sanctions. Russia and China both remain members of the 2015 nuclear deal, as do the Europeans, but they could not prevent the restoration of snapback sanctions if the Europeans chose to exercise them. Trump withdrew American participation in 2018.
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