Courtney McBride, Jonathan Tirone and Golnar Motevalli, Bloomberg News

WASHINGTON
EnergiesNet.com 08 25 2022

The US has sent its response to the European Union’s latest proposal to revive the multinational accord that limited Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of related economic sanctions, a fresh sign that an agreement may be within reach.

“As you know, we received Iran’s comments on the EU’s proposed final text through the EU,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement to reporters on Wednesday. “Our review of those comments has now concluded. We have responded to the EU today.”

Price didn’t disclose details of the US response, but the announcement indicates further movement after what a top European Union official has called Iran’s “reasonable response” to the bloc’s latest proposal.

“The president’s committed to achieving a diplomatic outcome here” to prevent “Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability,” John Kirby, spokesman for President Joe Biden’s National Security Council, told reporters. “So we take that seriously.”

Kirby said “we are closer now than we were even just a couple of weeks ago because Iran made the decision to make some concessions, so that’s a positive step forward. But I would add very quickly, and we said this not long ago: Gaps remain. We’re not there yet.”

Among Iran’s concessions was dropping a demand that a US terrorist designation of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps be rescinded.

An EU official confirmed the bloc had received the US response and passed it on to Iranian officials. Nasser Kanaani, a spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said the Islamic Republic would comment on Washington’s reply after it’s finished a “detailed assessment” of the latest US position.

Oil Outlook

Benchmark crude oil futures have fallen more than 20% since early June on concern about the outlook for the global economy and the possibility of more Iranian oil coming onto the market via a revived deal. Iran aims to fill the void left by Russia in the European oil market if sanctions are eased, according to people with knowledge of Tehran’s strategy. At the end of the year, Europe will ban most of its member states from buying seaborne cargoes of Russian oil, creating uncertainty over supply.

Oil swung between gains and losses on Wednesday as traders grappled with the potential of additional Iranian supplies at a time of record US exports of crude and refined products.

Diplomats want to strike an agreement that reinstates limits on Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program in exchange for lifting US sanctions on the Iranian economy, including oil exports. The original accord collapsed after then-President Donald Trump abandoned it in 2018.

Delivering a further boost to the multiparty negotiations, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s probe into uranium traces found in Iran, discovered after an Israeli operation helped identify possible covert activities, could also be nearing conclusion.

The IAEA investigation has emerged as a major point of contention and obstacle to progress in recent weeks.

“We are going to get there, I’m pretty confident,” IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said late Tuesday in an interview on PBS, adding his inspectors have agreed on a mechanism to resolve the three-year probe.

A move by Biden to return to the Iran accord would meet significant resistance from Republicans and some Democrats in Congress.

“Congress must review any agreement that is reached,” Representative Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a letter to Biden on Tuesday.

A revival of the Iran accord also is likely to meet strong opposition from Israel, a close US ally that opposed the original deal from the start. 

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met on Tuesday with his Israeli counterpart, Eyal Hulata, and assured him of the Biden administration’s “commitment to ensure Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon,” according to a White House statement.

(Updates with further US comment starting in fourth paragraph)

bloomberg.com 08 23 2022