Tehran- Representatives of the world powers that signed a 2015 nuclear deal are headed to Vienna on Tuesday to save the landmark accord, but the path forward appears long and arduous.
News on Friday that remaining members of the accord – Iran, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom – will hold in-person talks was greeted as a welcome development to avoid a total breakdown.
In a late-night Clubhouse voice chat, Iran’s nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi said last week the “deadlock is being broken” on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) as a “childish” argument over who should act first comes to an end.
Representatives from Iran and the United States, however, will not be in the same room together in Vienna, as Iran insists there will be no direct or indirect talks between the two countries before the US lifts the harsh sanctions former President Donald Trump imposed after unilaterally abandoning the deal in 2018.
A year later, Iran started scaling back its commitments under the deal in response as the US continued its “maximum pressure” campaign despite opposition by the other signatories.
‘Rapid sanction-lifting’
Sina Azodi, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council, said both Iran and the US have recently shown the political will to restore the accord.
But while Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a tweet on Friday that the JCPOA signatories would direct their focus to “rapidly finalise sanction-lifting” in Vienna, that may be easier said than done.
“The issue here is that Iran’s actions to violate the deal are reversible, whereas for the US, it will be more difficult because of Trump administration’s scorched-earth policy to destroy JCPOA as much possible, and the complicated web of sanctions,” Azodi told Al Jazeera.

The Center for Strategic Studies’ Hosseini said he finds it unlikely Parliament will want to stop negotiations now, especially since the talks would not be possible without a green light from the supreme leader.
“But if the negotiations don’t yield results expected by the Iranian side, conservatives – who are highly motivated close to the elections – will be further emboldened, and then there’s no telling what they might do to stop negotiations progressing,” he said.
“So, the window of opportunity is very limited for all sides.” (Aljazeera)