Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Monday proposed a way to overcome the US-Iran ban on who will go first in returning to Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal, saying a senior EU official could “Synchronize” or “choreograph” the movements.
Zarif’s stance was a shift from his position, expressed in Jan. 22 articles in which he said the United States should lift U.S. sanctions before Iran returned to the treaty.
Iran’s Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif
(Photo: AFP)
“There can be a mechanism to either synchronize or coordinate what can be done,” Zarif told CNN when asked how to bridge the gap.
Each government is calling for the other to first relinquish compliance with the agreement, which was abandoned by former US President Donald Trump in 2018 but which President Joe Biden has said will return again if it resumes. Iran surrenders “tight”.
Under the agreement, Iran agreed to limit its nuclear program to make it more difficult for it to develop nuclear weapons as a reward for relief from the U.S. and other economic sanctions.
Zarif noted that the agreement created a Joint Commission coordinated by the head of European Union foreign policy, now Josep Borrell. Borrell can provide “a kind of … choreograph of the actions” needed from all sides, Zarif told CNN.
EU foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell
(Photo: AFP)
The Commission includes the EU and the seven parties to the treaty: Iran, Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.
After the agreement was lifted, Trump reversed U.S. sanctions and imposed new U.S. economic sanctions on Iran.
Analysts said Zarif’s stance could be the basis for talks on reviving the treaty despite Iran’s decision that the United States would lift sanctions first.
“I am absolutely amazed that we hear, in the midst of a largely incomparable situation from the Iranians, occasional loaves of bread which enable them to” engage in compromise, said Suzanne Maloney of the Brookings Institution.