The deal’s revival now awaits “political decisions” in Tehran and Washington after negotiators in Vienna agreed that the text drawn up between Iranian and European representatives over the past five days was the final text and could not be amended further. EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said: “Everything that can be negotiated has been negotiated and is now in a final text. However, behind every technical issue and every paragraph there is a political decision that needs to be made in capitals. If those answers are positive, then we can sign this agreement.” The bottom line is that the EU is willing to accept the renegotiated deal, but political decisions still need to be made in the Iranian and US capitals. Professor Mohammad Marandi, an adviser to the Iranian negotiating team, struck a non-committal note, stressing that the text needed Washington’s agreement, not Borrell’s. Borrell said: “Negotiators used these days of discussions and proximity talks between the US and Iran to coordinate and address – with technical adjustments – a handful of issues that remain in the text I put on the table last July 21, as the coordinator of the agreement.” Mikhail Ulyanov, the chief Russian negotiator in Vienna, said: “If there is no opposition to the draft ‘final text’, the nuclear deal will be revived.” He said at the weekend that Russia had supported amendments to the text proposed by the EU. The US described the submitted draft as “the best and only basis for reaching an agreement”. “For our part, our position is clear: we are ready to quickly conclude a deal based on the EU’s proposals,” a foreign ministry spokesman said, suggesting it was up to Iran to restore the deal. The first official reaction in Tehran was cautious, amid concerns that the US would not honor its commitments under the deal. Robert Maley, the US special envoy to Iran, who was also the lead negotiator for the 2015 deal, has been in Vienna for the past five days and received input from the EU negotiating team. The latter issues include the extent to which sanctions on US guarantees are lifted not only nominally but functionally by the provision of credit guarantees. Tehran has also been pushing for the removal of the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s elite military force, from the US list of foreign terrorist organizations, but appears to have adjusted the demand. Tehran is also exploring the extent to which the US government is willing to make binding commitments that any business deals signed before the next US presidential election will be honored if a new administration in Washington pulls out of the deal again. Separately, disagreements also continued over inspections of Iran’s nuclear sites by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog. Iran is asking the IAEA to close its investigation into the origin of nuclear particles found at three sites. So far, the IAEA has said no credible explanation has been given by Iran for the traces of nuclear particles, but has said the watchdog’s 35-member governing board will close the investigation if such an explanation is given. Iran fears that the IAEA may use the continued existence of the investigation as leverage to demand broader access to Iranian sites well beyond the terms set out in the nuclear deal. He also resents that the investigation is based on information provided by Israel. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST In March, the IAEA’s governing board passed a resolution condemning Iran’s failure to cooperate with the probe and to limit the watchdog’s access to the sites it is allowed to inspect under the original 2015 nuclear deal. Mohammad Jamshidi, the political deputy to Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, tweeted earlier in August that Raisi, in talks with his French, Russian and Chinese counterparts, had strongly insisted that a final deal could only be concluded when the IAEA investigation had stopped. Joe Biden, who faces midterm elections, and Iran, which is looking for ways to revive its economy, are unlikely to consider the final text of a deal that took more than 11 months to negotiate. Rather, both will consider the broader political and economic implications of creating the opportunity for normalization of relations. A rejection of the deal by either Tehran or Washington, or both, would mean a resurgence of US sanctions and a possible drop in Iranian oil and condensate exports from an estimated average of 1.5 million barrels per day in 2022 to about 1 million barrels by 2023 to 26. Conversely, if the deal is accepted, Iranian exports could reach 2.5 million barrels per day, leading to an increase in Iran’s revenue. Biden knows he will face heavy criticism from Israel, some Gulf states and the Republican party if he revives the deal, as the deal has relatively little time to implement. At the same time, he is aware of the risk of a nuclear arms race across the Middle East if there is no deal covering Iran’s civilian nuclear program.
