“At a time when transatlantic cooperation has become all the more critical to respond against Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, for US and European leaders to let slip the opportunity to defuse a nuclear crisis in the Middle East would be a grave mistake,” the letter warns, signed by members of the European Leadership Network, and board members from the International Crisis Group and European Council on Foreign Relations.
Fears have grown in recent weeks around the failure of the talks which were declared “paused” by the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell last month, following Russian demands for guarantees that Western sanctions imposed on its economy following its invasion of Ukraine would not affect its trade with Iran.
Adding to the unease, Iran confirmed the relocation of its centrifuge facility to an underground Natanz nuclear site earlier this month, days after the UN atomic watchdog said it had installed surveillance cameras to monitor the new workshop at Tehran’s request. An Axios report published on Monday claimed that the US administration had “recently started discussing a scenario” in which the deal collapses.
At the beginning of April, however, Iran’s foreign minister told the United Nations (UN) chief that “the ball is in America’s court” with regards to restoring the 2015 nuclear deal, adding that the negotiations were “close” to reaching an agreement.
The JCPOA, which signatories of the letter call a “success,” was agreed upon between Iran, Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States in 2015, offering Tehran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme. When former US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the deal in 2018 and imposed stiff economic sanctions, Tehran embarked upon the process of rolling back on its nuclear commitments. The tacit fear that Trump’s potential decision to run once more for office, thus entirely undermining any deal, and Russia’s negotiating role as a permanent member of the UN Security Council - and unreliability as an actor - are both concerns.
The US has not negotiated directly with Iran since unilaterally leaving the agreement, and another tension the letter references is US President Joe Biden’s seeming determination to keep the "terrorist" designation on Iran's Revolutionary Guards, which Tehran is demanding be removed before it returns to a deal on curbing its nuclear program, arguing that they were only added to the list to increase pressure on them after 2018.
“We know that the politics of this issue are difficult, particularly on issues like the designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, which is reportedly the last lingering issue of contention,” the signatories - including former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Poland’s former Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrzej Olechowski, and former realo-faction German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer - add. “Both sides must approach this final phase of negotiation with an understanding that the strategic implications of failure would be grave and profound.”
The letter cautions the “two possible scenarios ahead.” In one, it sets out, “the US swiftly shows decisive leadership and requisite flexibility to resolve remaining issues of political (not nuclear) disagreement with Tehran. In the other, the parties enter a state of corrosive stalemate, serving neither side’s interests, that risks devolving into a cycle of increased nuclear tension, inevitably countered by the further application of coercive tools.”
“Having come within touching distance, we urge President Biden and the Iranian leadership to demonstrate flexibility in tackling an issue of vital significance to the global nonproliferation regime and regional stability, and see these negotiations through to a successful conclusion,” the letter concludes.
