According to<\/a> US media outlets, the ceasefire talks in Pakistan\u2019s capital Islamabad collapsed without a deal due to differences over Iran\u2019s nuclear programme, with Washington pushing for a 20-year suspension and Iran proposing a five-year one.<\/p>\nMV Ramana, professor in Disarmament, Global and Human Security at the University of British Columbia, told Al Jazeera that the current discussion about how long Iran should suspend enriching uranium is primarily a process of bargaining.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth the US and Iranian governments have staked a lot of political capital on Iran\u2019s enrichment programme. The dispute in recent years and months has been that Trump wanted Iran to completely abandon the programme, and Iran refusing to ever do that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow they have moved a little from that position and are trying to stake out positions that are somewhat closer to each other. Beyond that, I cannot discern any technical reasons for either 20 or five years,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Under the JCPOA, Iran agreed to cap its U-235 enrichment levels to 3.67 percent \u2014 levels enough to fuel civil nuclear plants like the one at Bushehr, but far below what is needed for weapons \u2014 for 15 years. It also agreed not to build new centrifuges for 10 years, and to reduce the number of existing centrifuges over that decade. Enrichment \u2014 up to 3.67 percent \u2014 was only permitted at the Natanz facility. And Iran\u2019s enriched uranium stockpile would be kept under 300kg (660 pounds).<\/p>\n
At the point when Trump unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA, Iran was fully compliant with its commitments, according to the IAEA and US intelligence agencies.<\/p>\n
Eight years later, the JCPOA\u2019s terms might be at least partly responsible for the wrangling over the duration for which Iran agrees to cap its enrichment programme, said Ian Lesser, distinguished fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the time, he [Trump] and other critics felt the 10-year horizon was too short. So it is not surprising that both sides should pursue presenting a \u2018better deal\u2019 from their perspectives,\u201d Lesser said.<\/p>\n
In other words, Iran wants to commit to a period of less than 10 years, and the US to a period longer than a decade.<\/p>\n
After the first round of ceasefire talks concluded without a deal over the weekend, US Vice President JD Vance \u2014 who led his country\u2019s delegation \u2014 told journalists that \u201cthe ball is in the Iranian court\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one thing for the Iranians to say that they\u2019re not going to have a nuclear weapon. It\u2019s another thing for us to put in place the mechanism to ensure that\u2019s not going to happen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Chris Featherstone, a political scientist at the University of York, told Al Jazeera that Iran is understandably interested in offering the fewest concessions to the US in their negotiations.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the US, they have long held the view that Iran should be prevented from obtaining nuclear weapons. As such, they want to ensure Iran commits to not enriching uranium for as long as possible. Importantly, the longer that Iran goes without enriching uranium, the more difficult it is to restart the process,\u201d Featherstone explained.<\/p>\n
He added that for Trump, it\u2019s also all about being able to justify his claims that he is winning the war.<\/p>\n
\u201cIran committing to not enriching uranium for as long as possible can be seen as a \u2018success\u2019,\u201d Featherstone said. \u201cAnd he can demonstrate that he has achieved something with this war.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As the diplomatic push to renew ceasefire talks\u00a0between the United States and Iran continues, Washington and Tehran have also been negotiating a deal on Iran\u2019s uranium enrichment. Iran\u2019s current stockpile of enriched uranium \u2014 and its ability to enrich further \u2014 have been central elements of the long-standing demand by the administration of US President […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18908,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}