US welcomes EU announcement of resuming Iran nuke talks

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - The US welcomed on Wednesday the EU’s announcement that negotiations with Iran on a mutual return to compliance with the 2015 nuclear accord will resume at month's end.

State Department spokesman Ned Price said the Biden administration hopes that when Iran returns to negotiations following a five-month hiatus it would be "ready to negotiate quickly and in good faith as well."

"We believe it remains possible to quickly reach and implement an understanding on compliance with the JCPOA by closing the relatively small number of issues that remained outstanding at the end of June when the sixth round concluded," said Price, referring to the agreement by its formal name, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

"We believe that if the Iranians are serious we can manage to do that in relatively short order. But we’ve also been clear, including as this pause has dragged on for some time, that this window of opportunity will not be open forever, especially if Iran continues to take provocative nuclear steps," he added.

The US and Iran held six rounds of indirect talks mediated by the deal's other participants, but those talks ground to a halt in June and have not resumed following the election of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, a vocal critic of the JCPOA.

Representatives from China, Russia, France, the UK, and Germany will also participate in the Nov. 29 meeting in Vienna, which is to be chaired by Enrique Mora, deputy secretary-general of the EU diplomatic service.

US President Joe Biden has attempted to bring the US and Iran back to mutual compliance with the JCPOA, which placed an unprecedented international inspection regime on Iran's nuclear program in exchange for billions of dollars in relief from international sanctions.

Former US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the pact in 2018 and went on to pursue what his administration called a "maximum pressure" campaign against Tehran geared at bringing Iran back to the negotiating table by reimposing sanctions and adding new ones to a laundry list of penalties, which proved ultimately futile.

Iran, in retaliation, stepped back from its commitments under the agreement and continues to do so in a bid to ramp up pressure on the US and the pact's other signatories.