Hopes rise over fresh talks for Iran nuclear deal

While the Trump administration has stepped up its “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran by adding to existing sanctions, Tehran has called for fresh negotiations over a “deal” to curb its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.

There appears to be some optimism that talks could resume as real estate developer Donald Trump also fancies himself as a “deal maker” and has pledged to be a peacemaker during his second term in the White House. Nothing Trump would like better than a Nobel Peace Prize.

On the regional front, it has been suggested that Riyadh — which reconciled with Iran in 2023 — could address Iran’s nuclear programme as well as its regional activities with the aim of easing tensions and promoting stability. Since Iran’s regional allies Hamas and Hizbollah have been weakened over in recent months, the main focus of mediation would be Iran’s nuclear programme and sanctions which have crippled Iran’s economy.

On the global front, Russia is back in play. Trump has broken with the Biden administration’s policy of isolating and sanctioning Russia over its war in Ukraine and has called for a deal to end it. During a meeting in Riyadh last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, reportedly, asked Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to suggest Iran reopen talks with the US.

He did so during his subsequent visit to Tehran, according to the Kuwaiti daily Al-Jarida. It reported the US is ready to start with talks at the expert level and if there is progress proceed to foreign ministers with a new deal to be signed between Trump and Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian. It would be ironic for Trump to take the US back into the nuclear deal from which he withdrew in 2018.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has responded positively to this report, conditioning talks on the rejection of pre-conditions before talks begin, suspension of US sanctions during negotiations, and a halt to Israeli threats to attack Iran’s nuclear sites. For at least two decades the US has resisted Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s plan to obliterate Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Qatar has also offered to mediate between Iran and the US while Oman could also play a role. Oman acted as go-between during negotiations which led to the landmark 2015 agreement.

Last week the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran has boosted its output of 60 per cent enriched uranium by more than 91.7 kilograms since last November. This means Iran has a total of 274 kilograms of uranium purified to this level, which is an easy step from 90 per cent needed for weapons. Iran’s total stockpile of enriched uranium has reached 8,294 kilograms. This includes uranium enriched to the permitted 3.67 per cent as well as the banned 20 and 69 per cent. It is not known what percentage of the stockpile consists of material enriched to 60 per cent. The IAEA estimates that 41.7 kilograms of 90 per cent enriched uranium are needed to produce one nuclear bomb.

Until Trump pulled out of the deal, entitled the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran’s nuclear programme had been the world’s most circumscribed and monitored. Iran was one of the founding 62 signatories of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which went into effect in 1970. The NPT banned countries other than the US, Russia, China, Britain, and France from acquiring nuclear weapons while NPT signatories have been permitted to develop peaceful nuclear programmes for power plants. These include Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Iran, Japan, and Holland.

Among UN-member states which are not NPT signatories, Israel, India, North Korea, and Pakistan have manufactured nuclear weapons. Israel - which has never admitted it has nuclear bombs – is said to have an arsenal ranging from 60 to 400.

The JCPOA reached between Iran and the US, UK, France, Germany, China, Russia, and Germany was the most intrusive agreement ever to be reached by any country engaged in nuclear research and development. The JCPOA limited enrichment to 3.67 per cent and Iran’s stockpile at 202.8 kilograms. Iran was required to export excess to Russia for repurposing. Iran was permitted to employ old model centrifuges for purification.

Iran also submitted to constant surveillance and monitoring by IAEA cameras and teams who present regular reports to the agency’s board of governors.

Tehran waited for a year while the UK, Europe, Russia, and China failed to breach US sanctions imposed by Trump before systematically violating the restrictions imposed by the JCPOA. Iran’s initial violations were tentative but as sanctions continued to bite, Iran dramatically advanced its nuclear programme to its current high level in terms of technical development and expertise as well as capabilities and stockpiles while vowing not to pursue nuclear weapons.

Iran’s adversarial relationship with the US has been a major cause of the trouble over the nuclear programme. Two coups d’etat have determined this relationship. The first was the British-inspired, US ouster of Iran’s elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 due to his nationalisation of the Anglo-Iranian oil company. The beneficiary of this coup was Shah Mohammed Raza Pahlavi who established his iron fist rule over the country while becoming dependent on the US for protection. Iranians have never forgotten or forgiven this intervention which they claim undermined their democracy.

The second coup was the 1979 overthrow of the shah by clerical revolutionaries led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini who adopted a strong anti-US line. Like Iranians, US policy makers have neither forgotten nor forgiven this coup although by the 1990s Iran’s fourth President Hashemi Rafsanjani indicated that Tehran sought to begin the process of normalising ties.

This policy was amplified by his successor Mohammed Khatami who initiated a “Dialogue of Civilisations” with the aim of restoring Iran’s relations with the West and the wider world. Failure led Iran’s hardliners to engineer the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to two presidential terms, but he was followed in 2013 by moderate Hassan Rouhani who negotiated the JCPOA with the Obama administration.

Iran scrupulously adhered to its terms although the US did not deliver on key financial sanctions. Trump withdrew from the JCPOA and his successor Joe Biden failed to deliver on a campaign pledge to return to the deal. Thanks to Iran’s advances over the past 6 years, an entirely new JCPOA will have to be negotiated and bolstered with guarantees that no signatory would be able to renege.