There are signs of progress in the Vienna negotiations, but the Biden administration has told Tehran’s diplomats it can’t accede to one of their firmest demands.
As the Biden administration tries to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, one of the biggest obstacles is Tehran’s demand that the US provides a guarantee that it won’t again quit the pact and re-impose sanctions, diplomats involved in talks in Austria say.
The U.S. has consistently said no president can legally tie the hands of a successor without a treaty that would need to garner the backing of two thirds of the U.S. Senate. The U.S. has also said the current talks should remain focused on restoring the 2015 deal, not seeking new commitments on both sides.
The standoff over guarantees comes amid what U.S. and European officials say are signs of progress in the Vienna talks, involving Iran, the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. The 2015 deal suspended most international sanctions on Iran in exchange for tight but temporary restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program.
Western diplomats say a pathway to a deal is possible, showing more optimism since December when Iran’s demands left negotiations on the brink of failure. U.S. and European officials are privately eyeing mid-February as the moment to decide whether the diplomacy is exhausted.
There has been progress on the fine print, including how sanctions would be lifted, how Iran will scale back its nuclear work, and how a deal might be implemented over several months.
However, Western diplomats warn that a range of core political decisions on sanctions, nuclear steps and sequencing of an agreement must still be made and many worry whether Tehran is willing to cut a deal quickly enough. Western officials have repeatedly warned that the window for talks is closing given the advances in Iran’s nuclear work.
U.S. and European officials say they are exploring ideas to put to Iran which could generate additional confidence. Ideas that are being weighed are promises of letters of assurance from the U.S. Treasury Department for an agreed list of international banks and companies or a political commitment to some kind of phase-in of future sanctions. Yet these would fall short of ironclad, legal guarantees.
"Basically, there are proposals on the table on how economic operators can get some comfort if a new American administration re-imposes sanctions," said a person close to the talks. “In a democratic country, in three years time, [there] can be a new president and things can change. So we are working on that but there are no real magic ideas."