US President Joe Biden’s administration on Friday waived some sanctions related to Iran’s atomic program as talks aimed at salvaging the languishing 2015 nuclear deal enter a critical phase.
As US negotiators head to Vienna for what could be a make-or-break session, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed several sanctions waivers related to Iran’s civilian nuclear activities.
The move reverses the previous administration’s decision to rescind them.
Photo: AFP
The waivers are intended to entice Iran back to the 2015 deal that then-US president Donald Trump withdrew from in 2018 as US sanctions were reimposed.
In the short term, the waivers exempt foreign countries and companies that work in Iran’s civilian nuclear sector from US penalties.
US officials said that is critical to building support for a return to the deal, and denied they were granting Iran any concessions. The officials said that the waivers are necessary to bring onboard other parties to the deal — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the EU.
“We did NOT provide sanctions relief for Iran and WILL NOT until/unless Tehran returns to its commitments under the JCPOA,” US Department of State spokesman Ned Price wrote on Twitter, using the acronym for the official name of the nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
“We did precisely what the last administration did: permit our international partners to address growing nuclear nonproliferation and safety risks in Iran,” Price said.
The Trump administration had grudgingly approved the waivers, which apply to Chinese, Russian and European companies, even after withdrawing from the deal. However, that ended when then-US secretary of state Mike Pompeo rescinded them in May 2020.
Iran said that it had adhered to the terms of the deal until the US pulled out, and that it would comply with the deal when its sanctions relief is restored.
The Trump administration ended the so-called “civ-nuke” waivers in May 2020 as part of its “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran that began when the US withdrew from the deal in 2018, saying that it was the worst diplomatic agreement ever negotiated and gave Iran a pathway to developing a nuclear bomb.
As a presidential candidate, Biden made a US return to the nuclear deal a priority, and his administration has pursued that goal, although there has been little progress to that end since he took office in January last year.
Administration officials said the waivers were being restored to help push the Vienna negotiations forward.
“The waiver with respect to these activities is designed to facilitate discussions that would help to close a deal on a mutual return to full implementation of the JCPOA and lay the groundwork for Iran’s return to performance of its JCPOA commitments,” the State Department said in a notice to Congress that announced the move.
“It is also designed to serve US nonproliferation and nuclear safety interests and constrain Iran’s nuclear activities,” the department said. ``It is being issued as a matter of policy discretion with these objectives in mind, and not pursuant to a commitment or as part of a quid pro quo. We are focused on working with partners and allies to counter the full range of threats that Iran poses.”
The waivers permit foreign countries and companies to work on civilian projects at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power station, its Arak heavy water plant and the Tehran Research Reactor.
Critics of the nuclear agreement said that even if the Biden administration wants to return to the 2015 deal, it should at least demand some concessions from Iran before granting it sanctions relief.
“From a negotiating perspective, they look desperate: ‘We’ll waive sanctions before we even have a deal, just say yes to anything!’” said Rich Goldberg, a senior adviser to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
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