EU proposes ‘final text’ for agreement in Iran nuclear negotiations

VIENNA, ANKARA

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has offered a "final text" to the parties to reach a consensus in the ongoing Iran nuclear negotiations, an EU official said on Monday.

“During these four days we have worked on these issues with technical questions and today the high representative (Borrell) is putting into table basically the same text with some improvements for these technical questions,” said the EU diplomat, who asked not to be identified, referring to Borrell’s official title, high representative for foreign affairs and security policy.

Now the parties to the talks will consider this text, said the official, calling it the best possible effort by the EU to reach a compromise between the parties.

Underlining that the text covers every single aspect of the deal, he said the parties’ response will determine whether a final agreement is reached or not.

The text put forward by Borell will not be changed or negotiated, the official added.

The diplomat said he expects the process to "come to a conclusion very, very soon.”

The US and Iranian delegations, as well as EU officials, will leave Vienna on Monday or Tuesday, the EU diplomat noted.

“So we are leaving Vienna because the negotiation is over. We have finished the negotiations. We have produced a text,” the official added.

Referring to then-President Donald Trump’s unilateral US withdrawal from the deal – officially named the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – in 2018, he said: “When we arrived here, there were many questions of what we can do for the US go back to full compliance with the JCPOA and what we can do for Iran to go back to meeting its commitments under the nuclear agreement.”

“It's my strong conviction that all the questions have been answered in the best possible way for the JCPOA,” he added.

After a five-month break, negotiations resumed last Thursday in Vienna to revive the Iran nuclear deal by finding a compromise between the US and Iran.

‘What can be negotiated has been negotiated’

“Negotiators used these days of discussions and proximity talks between the US and Iran to fine tune and address – with technical adjustments – a handful of issues remaining in the text that I have put on the table last July 21, as coordinator of the JCPOA nuclear deal,” Borrell said Monday on Twitter.

“What can be negotiated has been negotiated, and it’s now in a final text. However, behind every technical issue and every paragraph lies a political decision that needs to be taken in the capitals. If these answers are positive, then we can sign this deal,” he added.

The nuclear deal was signed in 2015 by Iran, the US, China, Russia, France, the UK, Germany, and the EU.

Under the agreement, Tehran committed to limit its nuclear activity to civilian purposes and in return, world powers agreed to drop their economic sanctions against Iran.

Trump’s withdrawal in 2018, with the US reimposing sanctions on Iran, prompted Tehran to stop complying with the nuclear deal.

The EU, as the coordinator of the deal, has made significant efforts to get Iran and the US back to the negotiating table since the beginning of the conflict.