Iran and the three European countries that signed the 2015 nuclear agreement – Germany, France and the United Kingdom – will meet again to discuss Iran’s nuclear program and resume negotiations to reactivate the pact. “The new round of talks between Iran and the three European countries will be held in Geneva on January 13,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi announced on Wednesday, according to the news agency Isna news. The official said the talks would be “just consultations, not negotiations.”
The new talks will take place just a week before US President-elect Donald Trump takes office on January 20. In 2018, during his first term (2016-2020), Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear agreement and reinstated sanctions against Iran that had been suspended by the pact in exchange for restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program. A year after the US withdrawal, Tehran began gradually reducing its commitments to the deal. Since then, the signatory parties have held several rounds of negotiations to reactivate the pact, without success.
The last meeting between Tehran and the three European powers took place in Geneva at the end of November, and was described by Gharibabadi at the time as “frank”. However, in mid-December, Germany, France and the United Kingdom accused Iran of increasing its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to “unprecedented levels without any credible civilian justification.” Furthermore, they raised the possibility of reinstating international sanctions against Iran to prevent the development of its nuclear program.
In recent years, Iran has increased its production of enriched uranium to the point where it is the only non-nuclear-weapon state to enrich uranium to 60%, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This level of enrichment is very close to the 90% needed to make an atomic bomb. However, Iran insists on its right to peaceful nuclear energy and has consistently denied any ambition to develop nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction, which are prohibited by a religious decree from Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has the say final in all matters of State.