Tuesday 13 July 2021

Reviving the Iran Nuclear Deal: Iranian official says what achived far outweigh what not achived

 

Iran and JCPOA 2021

An Iranian spokesman of the Foreign Ministry admitted that talks are underway with the US on prisoner-swaps, confirming the reports in this regard in certain Middle Eastern news outlets.

Referring to the talks on the JCPOA, 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, the same official said over 90% of progress has been made so far after six rounds of talks, while admitting the rest being the hardest.

He, however, emphasized that what the discussions achieved far outweigh what was not achieved, without losing the optimism of an ultimate success.

The thorny issue has been Iran’s insistence of having a guarantee from the US that a change in administration would not be led to yet another policy ‘U’ turn; the US is not keen on that, though.

The Russian officials, meanwhile, echoes the same sentiment as do their Iranian counterparts.

Although Iran wants the deal done on its terms, its oil sector cannot hide the hope of the revival of the JCPOA: it has been stepping up the production of oil even before the start of the talks to reviving the nuclear deal under Biden administration; Iran, meanwhile, exported the first consignment of bitumen, a residue from petroleum products, from its offshore sites to Oman on Tuesday, something it plans to carry out every month.

Therefore, there seems to be a collective goal that all sides aspire to achieve - to reviving the JCPOA at the earliest opportunity; the ongoing, backdoor discussions may finally pave the way for the signatories to converge to the desired outcome, trampling on the mushrooming obstacles.