Iran - Q&A - (13 October 2021)

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Q: The European coordinator of the talks on the JCPoA will be in Tehran on Tuesday to meet with the Iranian authorities. What do you expect from that visit?

A: The statements and actions on the ground by President Ebrahim Raisi’s new administration raise doubts on his intention to return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA). Discussions in Vienna on the return of Iran and the United States to the JCPoA have been suspended, at Iran’s request, for nearly four months, and Iran has still not committed to a date for their resumption. While refusing to negotiate, Iran is creating de facto situations on the ground that further complicate its return to the JCPoA. This trip to Tehran by European coordinator Enrique Mora therefore comes in a context of crisis and at a critical moment for the future of the nuclear agreement.

As we have said constantly for four months, France, its E3 partners, its other JCPoA partners and the United States are ready to return to the Vienna negotiations without delay and to resume them at the point where we had left them last June. We share the same political will to swiftly conclude these talks in order to provide Iran and the Iranian people with the significant, immediate economic benefits provided under the agreement. We expect Iran to demonstrate the same clarity in its intentions.

We also remain extremely concerned by Iran’s failure to abide by its obligations and commitments toward the IAEA, especially the commitments it itself undertook toward the agency on September 12. We urge Iran to invite the IAEA Director General to quickly come to Tehran for high-level discussions with Iranian political authorities in order to move forward on outstanding issues, including those related to Iran’s obligations with respect to guarantees, and on the implementation of the temporary provisions agreed with the IAEA last February on the enforcement of the Vienna Agreement’s Additional Protocol and verification arrangement.

Iran must swiftly resume its full and entire cooperation with the IAEA and end all the activities of unprecedented gravity that it is pursuing in violation of the JCPoA.