In a special report on Thursday, February 17, Reuters quoted Western diplomats as saying that in the 20-page draft of the ongoing UN Security Council talks in Vienna, bilateral measures to return Iran and the United States to fulfilling all their commitments were considered, but the exemption of the Islamic regime of Iran from oil sanctions does not include the first steps.
Three Western diplomats told Reuters that the draft agreement outlined a precise process for a step-by-step return of Iran and the United States to fulfilling their commitments to the IAEA, the most important of which was to halt uranium enrichment above 5 percent. The other steps outlined in the draft agreement set as a prerequisite for reaching an agreement are the release of about $7 billion in Iranian assets frozen in US banks due to US sanctions, and the release of all Western citizens from Iranian prisons, led by Robert Mali, the head of the US negotiating team.
Nour News, affiliated with the regime’s Supreme National Security Council, implicitly confirmed it hours after the Reuters report was released, but claimed that the release of American and European prisoners held in Iran “has essentially nothing to do with the Vienna talks.”
According to Western diplomats, only if these conditions are met and approved by all parties involved in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) negotiations, the implementation of the next steps, including the lifting of sanctions against Iran, or in other words, the re-implementation of the spirit of JCPOA will begin.
The timing of each of these steps has not yet been agreed. However, some officials familiar with the Vienna talks say the interval between the implementation of the preliminary steps of the agreement and the day of the implementation of the main spirit of the UN Security Council, namely the lifting of sanctions, may be one to three months. At that stage, Iran will have to reduce its uranium enrichment to below 3.67 percent, which was set out in the original JCPOA agreement.
In this new agreement, instead of the complete and immediate lifting of oil sanctions against Iran, the US government will provide the necessary conditions for the sale of Iranian oil in the world market by issuing quarterly exemptions.
A spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry denied the report in a tweet, calling it “incorrect information.”
