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The chief negotiator of Iran, Ali Bagheri Kani has warned the first talks due to be held by Iran’s new government with international powers over the country’s nuclear program will fail unless the US agrees to a key set of conditions. The major objective of the negotiations in Vienna is that the Biden administration rejoins the landmark deal which former US President Donald Trump had unilaterally abandoned while imposing punitive sanctions on Iran. Bagheri Kani also stressed that any progress on that front must be preceded by the scrapping of all American sanctions and a guarantee that a future administration in Washington will not once again renege on the agreement as Trump had done. The warning from Bagheri Kani came at a time of rising uncertainty and alarm over Iran’s nuclear program.

The head of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) reported on Wednesday that talks held in Tehran had failed in getting suspended access to the nuclear sites for UN Inspectors. The director-general of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi said the lack of access was posing critical problems for verifying what was taking place and may endanger the survival of the JCPOA. He said, “The agency was close to the point when I will not be able to guarantee continuity of knowledge. It was imperative that we must reach an agreement: we must do it”. The meeting in Vienna follows the election of the conservative Ebrahim Raisi last summer in the Iranian Presidential election. It was followed by a pause in the talks which had been going on between Tehran and the other signatory states including Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China.

There is widespread recognition among other signatory states that the JCPOA will not properly function unless the US rejoins the deal. Bagheri Kani also said, “The removal of all JCPOA related sanctions such as the sanctions imposed within the framework of ‘maximum pressure campaign is the necessary condition for the success of the negotiations. Demanding guarantees from the other party not to exit the deal, not to impose and enforce new sanctions, and not to reinstate and reapply the previous sanctions is aimed at neutralizing the possibility that political chaos in the United States could have an impact on its international behavior”. Point to be noted that senior diplomats say the Americans are prepared to drop some of the sanctions. The Iranian negotiator had met British officials and the Foreign Office minister, James Cleverly, to discuss the nuclear deal as well as Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s incarceration on a visit to London earlier this month.