Iran-E3 to hold fresh round of nuclear talks on January 13
Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi said Iran will hold a new round of nuclear talks with France, Britain, and Germany on January 13 in Switzerland.
Gharibabadi said on Wednesday that the talks were only “consultations, not negotiations.”
According to him, the pending talks would feature defining of the standing issues and further consultations “so we get to know within which frameworks and through which method we should conduct any [potential] negotiations if there were going to be any.”
The latest round of talks between Iran and the three countries, known as E3, was held in November in Geneva, which Gharibabadi at the time described as “candid.”
The January 13 talks will take place one week before Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
In 2015, Iran and world powers – including France, Britain and Germany – reached an agreement that saw the easing of international sanctions on Tehran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.
But the United States, during Trump’s first term in office, unilaterally withdrew from the accord in 2018 and reimposed biting economic sanctions.
Tehran adhered to the deal until Washington’s withdrawal, and then began rolling back on its commitments.
Tensions between Iran and European countries have escalated over the past two years due to European accusations of Iran’s uranium enrichment as well as delivery of missiles and drones to Russia.
The European countries and the United States have also sanctioned several Iranian individuals and institutions over the issues.
European countries claim that Iran has supplied ballistic missiles to Russia for use in the Ukraine conflict, an allegation that Tehran has categorically rejected.
In a recent action against Tehran, the European troika also pushed the adoption of a resolution in the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in November. The resolution accused Tehran of poor cooperation with the agency and demanded a “comprehensive” report on its nuclear activities by spring 2025.
Iran insists on its right to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and has consistently denied any ambition of developing nuclear weapons capability.