Germany signals growing impatience with Iran on nuclear deal

According to a German magazine, the foreign minister of Germany is signaling growing impatience with Iran, saying that reviving the country’s broken nuclear agreement with international powers won’t be feasible “forever.”

During six rounds of negotiations in Vienna, the remaining parties to the deal — Russia, China, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Iran — have been attempting to determine how the United States may rejoin and how Tehran can return to compliance. In 2018, President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal, but his successor, Joe Biden, has stated that the US wants to rejoin.

The last round of talks ended in Vienna on 20 June. No date has been set for a new meeting.

“I am becoming concerned that Iran is postponing the restart of the Vienna nuclear discussions on the one hand, while simultaneously moving farther and further away from key aspects of the agreement,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas was quoted in the news monthly Der Spiegel.

Iran has been steadily breaching the deal’s limitations since the US withdrew, putting pressure on the remaining countries to come up with economic incentives to counter crippling US sanctions. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, is a deal that aims to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Tehran claims it is not looking for any.

“We want a return to the JCPOA and are firmly convinced that it is in all sides’ interest,” Maas said. “But it is also clear that this option will not be open to us forever.”

Maas echos words by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on Thursday. “Negotiations with Tehran over the Iran nuclear deal “cannot and will not go on indefinitely,” he said during a trip to Kuwait.
Meanwhile, Iran maintains its skepticism.

“The present US administration has yet to fulfill the pledges Joe Biden made during his presidential election campaigns to undo Trump’s acts and return to the accord,” the pro-government Mehr News Agency writes, describing the negotiations as “fruitless.”

The US has “not taken a single step forward to” lift sanctions, according to the report, and “the Americans have failed to promise that they will not breach the JCPOA again.

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