Iran Calls Meeting with Nuclear Deal Signatories ‘Constructive’

An emergency meeting in Vienna with parties to Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal was “constructive,” Iranian official Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday. “The atmosphere was constructive. Discussions were good. I cannot say that we resolved everything; I can say there are lots of commitments,” Araghchi, the senior Iranian nuclear negotiator, told Reuters. “As we have said, we will continue to reduce our commitments to the deal until Europeans secure Iran’s interests under the deal.” The talks were called in response to an escalation in tensions between Iran and the West, highlighted by confrontations in the Gulf and by Tehran’s breaches of the multilateral deal, such as surpassing the enriched uranium stockpile limit and enriching uranium beyond the 3.67% purity cap. Earlier this month, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) seized a British-flagged oil tanker two weeks after British forces stopped and impounded an Iranian oil tanker near Gibraltar, accusing Tehran of violating European Union sanctions against Syria. The remaining signatories to the pact – Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and Iran – have been trying to salvage it after the United States withdrew last year and reimposed crippling sanctions on the Islamic Republic.