A senior State Department official confirmed, on Thursday, that the United States will accept the European Union’s invitation to hold a meeting of the P5 + 1 and Iran if invited to this meeting, while another State Department official revealed that Washington had submitted a message to the Security Council to reverse the decision it had taken. The previous administration reimposed international sanctions on Iran (Snapback). ”
The official explained that such a dialogue aims to explore possibilities of returning to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and to discuss the outstanding issues with Iran, including exploring whether we can reach a situation in which Iran will return to adhering to the joint action plan and America’s return to the agreement and use that as a platform for negotiating a longer agreement. And the most powerful and deal with several regional security concerns.
The official, who refused to reveal his name and asked to be identified as the first official, pointed to “the importance of the meeting held Thursday between Foreign Minister Anthony Blinken and the foreign ministers of the three European countries Britain, France, and Germany, where the Iranian nuclear file was discussed.”
“The four countries agree to return to the talks if Iran returns to abide by the agreement,” he said.
He explained what happened in the hours following the issuance of the joint statement by the four countries, where “the political director of the European Union tweeted that he was ready to hold an informal meeting of representatives of the five-plus-one countries and Iran to talk about the way forward to deal with the Iranian nuclear file.”
He said, “After this tweet, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued an answer announcing that if we were invited, we would accept the invitation.”
“In the event of a meeting, we will sit down to see how Iran and the United States can return to abiding by the agreement … and talk about the steps that should be taken to return to this point to extend and strengthen the nuclear agreement,” he added.
A second senior State Department official revealed that “the acting representative of the United States in the United Nations, Ambassador Richard Mills, presented a letter, Thursday, to the representative of the United Kingdom in the United Nations, which presides over the Security Council for this month, which reflects the decision taken by the previous administration to re-impose international sanctions on Iran.”.
“Through this work, the United States affirms that Security Council Resolution 2231 remains in effect,” he said.
He pointed out that “this message was distributed to the members of the Security Council and came into effect.” He also revealed that “the American mission at the United Nations informed the Iranian mission to the international organization that Washington had lifted the internal travel restrictions on the Iranian mission and restored the arrangements to what was in place before the Trump administration.”
On the other hand, the first official said that the dialogue process will be long to see if the two parties can agree on determining what is commitment versus commitment? what does that mean? What is the sequence? What steps should the United States take? What steps should Iran take? The official pointed out that “many issues could be brought up on the table, so we thought it might be a good idea when the European Union announced that it was ready to call a meeting.”
The American official said, “We will know in the coming days whether the Iranian side is ready to participate in the meeting to be held by the European Union, and I hope they will, but we have to wait to see.”
Regarding the location and time of the possible meeting, the first US official said, “I do not know the time or place. All I can say is that it will not be at the ministerial level but will be at the level of political directors and the US special envoy to Iran.”
In response to Republican criticism that through these concessions the administration is rewarding Iran for continuing its bad behavior, the first American official said, “These are not concessions to Iran … and we have seen what four years of maximum pressure and failure to talk to Iran have led to, which accelerated the Iranian nuclear program.” And making Iran’s position more aggressive in the region, and removing these counter-productive obstacles for the sake of diplomacy is in the interest of the United States. “
