Washington, DC: Tehran’s nuclear programme seems to have been the central sticking point in the failed negotiations between the US and Iran in Islamabad on Sunday.
While Washington has proposed a 20-year freeze on Iran’s uranium enrichment programme, Tehran said it could only agree to do it for five years, according to reports by The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
Proposals were exchanged on the suspension of Iranian nuclear activities during the Islamabad talks, but the two countries remain far apart on the length of any agreement. Tehran has proposed suspending uranium enrichment for up to five years — an offer the Trump administration rejected, insisting on 20 years, the NYT reported, quoting two senior Iranian officials and one US official.
The Donald Trump administration had earlier demanded that Tehran permanently end domestic enrichment amid concerns it could provide a pathway to nuclear weapons capability for the Islamic republic.
Political scientist Ian Bremmer has been quoted as saying that amid disagreement, the US and Iran may close the deal on a twelve-and-a-half-year suspension on uranium enrichment, as reported by NDTV.
Officials have said the dialogue was still alive, and there may be a path to a peace deal, even as the US military began its blockade of Iranian ports on Monday, threatening a nearly week-old cease-fire.
Apart from Tehran’s uranium enrichment, the other major issues at stake were the opening of the Strait of Hormuz– a major transit point for global energy supplies that Iran has effectively blocked, but the US has vowed to reopen — as well as international sanctions on Tehran, news agency Reuters reported, quoting sources.
The talks in Islamabad reportedly stretched for more than 20 hours. When discussions turned to guarantees, both non-aggression assurances and sanctions relief, the tone of the normally mild-mannered Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi grew sharper, the two Iranian sources told Reuters.
The sources quoted him as saying, “How can we trust you when, in the last Geneva meeting, you said the U.S. would not attack while diplomacy was underway?”
The US-Israeli attack on Iran began two days after the two sides held a previous round of talks in Geneva.
The parties came “very close” to an agreement and were “80% there”, before running into decisions that could not be settled on the spot, another source claimed.
According to a US official, Iranians did not properly understand that Washington’s core aim was to have a deal that ensured Iran would never obtain a nuclear weapon. Among Iran’s concerns was a distrust of US intentions.
White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said the US position had never shifted in the Islamabad meeting.
“Iran can never have a nuclear weapon, and President Trump’s negotiating team stuck to this red line and many others. Engagement continues toward an agreement,” she said.
