{"id":254237,"date":"2022-01-14T03:07:35","date_gmt":"2022-01-14T08:07:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=254237"},"modified":"2023-02-03T10:51:56","modified_gmt":"2023-02-03T09:51:56","slug":"iran-regimes-nuclear-defiance-a-ploy-to-buy-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/iran-regimes-nuclear-defiance-a-ploy-to-buy-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran Regime\u2019s Nuclear Defiance, a Ploy To Buy Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Iranian regime celebrate nuclear program with serving “Yellow Cake”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Negotiations over the re-implementation of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal are currently approaching the end of their eighth round in Vienna. The talks were stalled for five months following the appointment of Ebrahim Raisi as president by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and resumed at the end of November with his negotiators making even more assertive demands than they had made under the prior administration. The seventh round of talks<\/a> ended in mid-December with little noteworthy progress, and the eighth round began on an accelerated schedule ahead of the New Year.<\/p>\n

Most of the parties to those talks are still trying to promote an optimistic outlook on the prospective resolution of a crisis that has been building since 2018 when the US pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. However, various public statements indicate that there are still huge gaps between Tehran\u2019s demands and any proposals that would be considered palatable to the US or its allies. French Foreign Minister Jean Yves Le Drian has explicitly stated that the negotiations are far away from any agreement, and that time is running short.<\/p>\n

The other Western signatories have given much the same impression, but the US has notably refused to impose strict deadlines on the process. On one hand, American and European officials have both pointed to the end of January or the beginning of February as an effective deadline, but on the other hand, they have taken no steps to formalize that deadline. Instead, Western narratives about the Vienna talks<\/a> have apparently begun to reshape themselves around the notion of an interim agreement that would meet the informal deadline without necessarily bringing an end to the negotiating process.<\/p>\n

Tehran has plainly rejected the notion of any such interim agreement, and Raisi\u2019s negotiators have declared that they are willing to remain engaged in the process for as long as it takes them to meet their demands. Meanwhile, those demands remain as clear non-starters for the Western powers. The regime\u2019s Foreign Ministry continues to insist that the US must lift all sanctions<\/a> that were imposed following the 2018 US withdrawal before the Islamic Republic even proceeds with negotiations on its own return to compliance with the restrictions put in place by the JCPOA.<\/p>\n

Following the seventh round of the Vienna talks, Iranian officials even went so far as to declare that the relief they sought was from sanctions in any category, not just those targeting the regime\u2019s nuclear activities. This is to say, Tehran is trying to use the Vienna talks to buy time.<\/p>\n

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US official: Iran to blame for fallout of nuclear talks<\/div><\/div>
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