EU ’Studying’ Iran’s Response to Proposed Text on JCPOA Revival

By Staff, Agencies

The European Union confirmed that it has received Iran's response to a modified text proposed by the EU aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA], saying the bloc is "studying" the reply with parties to the deal and the United States.

Nabila Massrali, a spokesperson for EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who coordinated talks between Iran and the P4+1 group of countries in the Austrian capital of Vienna, told Iranian state-run IRNA news agency on Tuesday.

"We are studying it and are consulting with the other JCPOA participants and the US on the way ahead," she said.

Late on Monday, Iran said it had provided the EU with its final conclusion on the talks aimed at reviving the JCPOA, emphasizing that it is now the US’s turn to show realism and flexibility if it really wants a final agreement to be reached.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian also said on the same day that if the US shows a realistic and flexible reaction to Iran’s offer, “we would be at the point of agreement,” adding, “The American side has orally agreed to two proposals offered by Iran.”

An adviser to the Iranian negotiating team said the parties to the JCPOA are closer to a final agreement on the deal’s revival than they have ever been.

“I can’t say that there will be a deal, but we’re closer than we’ve been before,” Mohammad Marandi, who is also vice-president for international affairs at the University of Tehran, said in a post on his Twitter account, citing remarks he made in an interview with Al-Jazeera Arabic.

In its response, he added, Iran “has expressed its concerns, but that the remaining issues are not very difficult to resolve.”

“Those concerns are founded upon past US/EU violations,” Marandi tweeted.

Four days of Vienna talks between representatives of Iran and the five remaining parties to the JCPOA to salvage the deal culminated on August 8 with a modified text on the table.

The Vienna talks had resumed on August 4 after several months of impasse, and expert-level negotiations were held between Iran and the P4+1 group of countries.

Iran and the remaining parties to the JCPOA -- Russia, China, France, Britain, and Germany -- started talks in the Austrian capital of Vienna in April last year. While the parties noted progress in multiple rounds of talks, the indecisiveness shown by Washington has prevented any significant breakthrough.

Last month, the negotiations were hosted in the Qatari capital of Doha in a different format, with Tehran and Washington holding indirect talks mediated by the European Union. Those talks also failed to produce any tangible result due to the excessive demands of the US.

Former US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from the JCPOA in 2018 and reinstated the sanctions that the deal had lifted and added new ones.