Global powers and Iran have, on Thursday, resumed talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal in an effort that is visibly complicated by Tehran’s stance to ramp up uranium enrichment.
Iran announced its decision on Tuesday to enrich uranium at
60% purity as a response to an explosion at its Natanz facility on Sunday. This
is a stride closer to the 90% that is said to be a weapons-grade material
The announcement has cast a dark shadow over the Vienna
talks.
The U.S. and European parties have called the move “provocative”
and have said that Tehran’s enrichment move is not in line with the efforts to
revive the accord that was halted by Washington three years ago.
The 2015 agreement tried to make it harder for Tehran to
develop an atom bomb in return for lifting sanctions.
Tehran's continuous refusal to engage in direct talks with
the United States compelled the European intermediaries to shuttle between
hotels in Vienna when Iran and the other signatories - China, Britain, Germany,
France, and Russia - held what was termed as an initial round of “constructive”
negotiations.
Senior diplomats at first met to set the tone, on Thursday,
in what they anticipated would be a somewhat tough round of talks to rescue the
pact.
Two expert-level groups, looking to put together the lists of
sanctions that the U.S. could lift with nuclear obligations Iran should adhere
to, have now restarted their discussions.
Iran's external affairs ministry said its negotiators had
guarded their decisions and expressed their disarray at "the weak reaction"
from global powers to the attack on Natanz
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