Why Did JCPOA Revival Talks Fail?

Tehran - BORNA - Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia's Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna, stated that the failure to reach an agreement on Iran's nuclear program was a result of "unreasonable actions by the West."

In an interview with the RIA Novosti news agency, he stated that since March 2022, the Western countries that are members of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—including Britain, Germany, France, and the United States—committed a series of fundamental mistakes that ultimately led the negotiations to a deadlock. According to him, the European countries essentially abandoned the continuation of talks to revive the JCPOA as early as Spring 2022, and a few months later, the United States followed suit. Ulyanov recalled that this happened at a time when negotiations for the deal's revival had reached their final stage.

He added that the European countries subsequently repeatedly escalated tensions surrounding Iran's nuclear program through their actions at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

In his view, "The resolutions they proposed gained a majority vote due to the specific composition of the Board of Governors members, but immediately compelled Tehran to take reciprocal action. This process was repeated many times. One can say that the Western position had and continues to have a completely unreasonable nature."

The Russian representative in Vienna further stated: "It is interesting that the idea of extending Resolution 2231 was initially raised by the Europeans, but when Russia and China presented the draft at the UN Security Council, these same Western countries prevented its adoption!"

In October, UN Security Council Resolution 2231, the document that endorsed the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and established mechanisms for its international oversight, expired.

In 2015, Britain, Germany, China, Russia, the United States, France, and Iran signed the JCPOA, according to which sanctions were lifted in exchange for restrictions on the Islamic Republic of Iran's nuclear program. However, the United States withdrew from the agreement in May 2018 during the first term of President Donald Trump and reinstated sanctions against Iran. In response, Iran announced that it would gradually reduce its commitments under the deal, including removing restrictions on research and development and the level of uranium enrichment.

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