PARIS • World powers and Iran return to Vienna today for a last-ditch effort to salvage a 2015 nuclear deal, but few expect a breakthrough as Teheran's atomic activities rumble on in an apparent bid to gain leverage against the West.
Diplomats say time is running low to resurrect the pact that then US President Donald Trump abandoned in 2018, angering Iran and dismaying the other world powers involved - Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia.
Six rounds of indirect talks were held between April and June this year. The new round begins after a hiatus triggered by the election of a new Iranian president - Mr Ebrahim Raisi, a hardline cleric.
Teheran's new negotiating team has set out demands that US and European diplomats consider unrealistic. It is insisting that all US and European Union sanctions imposed since 2017, including those unrelated to its nuclear programme, be dropped.
In parallel, Teheran's conflicts with the United Nations' atomic watchdog, which monitors the nuclear programme, have festered.
Iran has pressed ahead with its enrichment programme and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said that its inspectors have been treated roughly and refused access to re-install monitoring cameras at a site it deems essential to reviving the deal with world powers.
"(The Iranians) are doing enough technically so they can change their basic relationship with the West to be able to have a more equal dialogue in the future," said a Western diplomat involved in the talks.
Two European diplomats said it seemed Iran was simply playing for time to accumulate more material and know-how.
Western diplomats say they will head to today's talks on the premise that they resume from where they left off in June. They have warned that if Iran continues with its maximalist positions and fails to restore its cooperation with the IAEA, then they will have to quickly review their options.
Iran's top negotiator and foreign minister both repeated last Friday that full lifting of sanctions would be the only thing on the table in Vienna, Austria. One of the European diplomats said: "If this is the position that Iran continues to hold on Monday, then I don't see a negotiated solution."
Should the talks collapse, the likelihood is that the United States and its allies will initially confront Iran at the IAEA next month by calling for an emergency meeting. But they will also want to try to keep Russia, which has political influence on Iran, and China, which provides economic breathing space to Teheran via oil purchases, on their side as they initially seek alternative diplomatic options.
REUTERS
