Iran said on Friday that progress was made at talks in Vienna to save its nuclear accord with world powers, however, it was probably not enough to convince Tehran to change its decision to go over the deal’s core atomic restrictions one by one, Iran’s envoy to the talks said.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi was speaking after almost four hours of talks with senior diplomats from Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia.
“It was a step forward, but it is still not enough and not meeting Iran’s expectations,” Araqchi told reporters.
“I don’t think the progress made today will be enough to stop our process but the decision will made in Tehran.”
He said the Europeans had told the meeting that the Instex trade mechanism had been made operational, with the first transactions already processed, but that this was still insufficient because European countries were not buying Iranian oil, the key demand for it to stay in the 2015 nuclear deal.
“For Instex to be useful for Iran, Europeans need to buy oil or consider credit lines for this mechanism otherwise Instex is not like they or us expect,” he said.
Instex had now been widened to include more European countries beyond France, Britain and Germany, known as the E3, Araqchi said.
A European diplomat confirmed that the mechanism was now operational but the E3 have yet to make an official announcement.
In a joint statement earlier on Friday, Austria, Belgium, Finland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden, said they were working with the E3 to develop trade mechanisms.
Araqchi said all the parties in Vienna had agreed to hold a ministerial meeting “very soon”.
President Donald Trump last year pulled the United States out of the multinational deal under which sanctions on Iran were lifted in return for curbs on its nuclear program, verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Washington has since re-imposed tough sanctions on Iran, aiming to cut Tehran’s oil sales to zero to force it to negotiate a broader deal that would also cover its ballistic missile capabilities and regional influence.
