Iran and five powers meet in Vienna to save 2015 nuclear pact

This Tuesday in Vienna, the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran and the five states that remain in the 2015 nuclear agreement met to analyse how to save the pact, after the United States' withdrawal in 2018 and subsequent Iranian breaches cracked the agreement. Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and Iran, chaired by the secretary general of the European Union's Foreign Service, Helga Schmid, have discussed, in the so-called "Joint Commission", compliance with the agreement by Tehran, which agreed to limit its atomic programme in order not to manufacture nuclear weapons. The Iranian delegation was represented by the deputy foreign minister and nuclear negotiator, Abas Araghchi.

This meeting takes place in the midst of tensions within the United Nations Security Council. On 15 August the US president, Donald Trump, said he was ready to extend the arms embargo on Iran, which expires on 18 October. But only two of the fifteen members of the Security Council voted in favour of the US resolution, deepening the divisions between Washington and its European allies since the United States withdrew from the agreement. Last week, in a joint statement between the IAEA and the Iranian government, the latter announced an agreement for United Nations inspectors to visit two nuclear plants that were blocked. The aim is to verify whether the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme continues within the parameters agreed in the 2015 pact. 

This announcement came during the first visit to Iran by the agency's new director, the Argentine Rafael Mariano Grossi, who took up the post in 2019. Grossi held talks with Iran's nuclear chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, in Teheran and the two agreed to open "a new chapter of cooperation" as a sign of the Islamic regime's openness to nuclear weapons control. The confrontation between the UN nuclear control body and the Islamic Republic of Iran intensified in recent months after the nuclear agency asked the Persian country to allow its inspectors to enter nuclear plants. Until now, Iran had refused to accept the agency's requests, arguing that the suspected activities at the plants were based on Israeli assumptions.