Iran Won’t Accept Deadline in Nuclear Talks

Officials want 'politically-motivated' claims dropped

Reports on the ongoing Vienna nuclear talks always come with reports of progress and the US warning that the time is running out. There is no formal deadline, but the US pretends one is always just around the corner.

Iran, in their latest comments, are trying to clarify some things, primarily among which is that they don’t accept the myth of a deadline forcing them to hurry through the process and not settle things.

Iran is studying a draft proposal for restoring the nuclear deal, and doesn’t want to be rushed. They also want the IAEA to drop questioning centering on ‘politically motivated’ accusations.

These are allegations which came out of Israel related to “secret” nuclear sites in Iran, which Iran claims to have answered the questions on, but which there are forever additional excuses not to accept Iran’s reports.

At some point Iran got sick of rehashing the claims, since the US never believes them anyway and just wants more and more inquiries. With a deal on the horizon, Iran just wants the matter dropped entirely.

Iranian officials say that after the deal is reached they’ll be enriching uranium to 20% and 5%. The 20% level, need for which is limited, is the fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor, while the lower enrichment is largely fuel for the Bushehr power plant.

Though all enrichment is faulted by hawks, such levels really aren’t a proliferation risk, as they are not enriching uranium to weapons-grade, nor even attempting to reach those levels.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.