Will US improve relations with Iran? Tehran asks Washington to lift sanctions before reviewing their 2015 deal
President Joe Biden expressed his interest in taking the US back into the key nuclear deal that former President Barack Obama had signed with Iran in 2015. Donald Trump, who succeeded Obama as president, withdrew the US in 2018 from the multi-party deal that was signed with Tehran to put its nuclear ambitions under control.
According to Trump, the US was losing more because of the deal which he said favored Iran more. Relations between the US and Iran plummeted following that act and they are far from being stable at the moment despite Biden showing an intent to go to the pre-2018 situation.
On Sunday, February 21, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said the US must lift its economic sanctions imposed on it by the former Trump administration before the deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA, could be reviewed. Zarif’s remarks came after the Biden administration offered to meet representatives from Iran and other powers (China, France, Germany, Russia and the UK) that are involved in the deal.
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Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Tehran was yet to respond to the initiative. Zarif's remarks came in the wake of Tehran confirming that it would start limiting additional international monitoring of its nuclear sites on Tuesday, February 23, a move suggesting Tehran was making another move away from the deal.
Speaking on CBS News' ‘Face the Nation’ on Sunday, February 21, Sullivan said the ball was in Iran’s court. “It is Iran that is isolated now diplomatically, not the United States,” Sullivan said, adding: “And the ball is in their court.” Zarif, who spoke with Iran’s state-run Press TV, said the same day, "The United States must return to the deal and lift all sanctions."
"Biden claims that Trump’s maximum pressure policy was maximum failure...but they have not changed that policy (towards Iran). The United States is addicted to sanctions, but they should know that Iran will not yield to pressure," he added. The Iranian diplomat, however, did not confirm whether Tehran was refusing the Biden administration’s diplomatic offer.
However, Zarif’s remarks made it clear that Iran has taken a strong stance on the matter since the US pulled out of the deal three years ago. It said it will resume negotiations with the US only after the latter lifts the sanctions because it is Washington and not Tehran who pulled out of the agreement. The US has not shown much intent to take that first step till the offer came from the new administration which is the first public attempt from the US at renewed diplomacy.
IAEA faces challenge in 'less access' to Iran N-sites
That Iran has maintained its stance on the matter became evident when the chief of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said on Sunday, February 21, that its inspectors would get “less access” to the Middle Eastern nation’s nuclear sites.
Rafael Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who made the remarks in Vienna after visiting Iran to seek “a mutually agreeable solution for the IAEA to continue essential verification activities in the country”, however, added that the agency would still be able to monitor Iran’s atomic program.
“Zarif said IAEA surveillance cameras at some of Iran's nuclear sites would be shut off Tuesday, in line with a law passed by Iran's Parliament. These cameras were installed as part of an 'additional protocol' of the nuclear deal. Also, some nuclear inspectors will be barred from the sites,” USA Today reported.
The protocol is a voluntary deal between Iran and the IAEA which has been made as part of the 2015 deal. As per the measure, the agency “collects and analyzes hundreds of thousands of images captured daily by its sophisticated surveillance cameras,” it said in 2017. It added that it had placed “2,000 tamper-proof seals on nuclear material and equipment”.
Last December, Iran’s parliament approved a bill that would suspend part of the IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities if the deal’s European signatories did not provide relief from oil and banking sanctions by Tuesday, February 23.
The Biden administration had earlier said it was willing to hold talks with Iran as well as its European allies on the 2015 deal. "The United States would accept an invitation from the European Union High Representative to attend a meeting of the P5+1 and Iran to discuss a diplomatic way forward on Iran's nuclear program,” state department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.
Price was referring to the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council besides Germany.