Iran nuclear deal ‘in danger’, warns EU's top negotiator Josep Borrell

European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and EU's lead negotiator in the nuclear deal talks with Iran on Monday said that the dialogue is "in danger" due to the divergence in stance and disagreements held by Washington and Tehran. The talks were likely to suffer a deadlock despite that initially, both sides issued a series of "reasonable responses" to the draft deal that was submitted in late July. In August the talks gained traction with the United States scrapping the commercial sanctions that have depressed Iranian crude exports since 2018. On Monday, though, the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was on the brink of a stalemate, as both US and Iran have been losing confidence in finding a deal.

"We were converging to a closer position," said EU's foreign affairs representative Borrell, who has brokered the negotiations between Iran and the US.

"But then the last interaction is not converging, [it] is diverging… If the process doesn't converge, the whole process is in danger," he continued. 

'I am less confident..' Borrell about JCPOA

Borrell expressed scepticism about reviving the deal for the first time since dialogue resumed as he said, "I'm sorry to say that I am less confident today about the convergence of the negotiation process and about the prospect of closing the deal right now." He declared that no headway was made during the meetings for the reinstitution of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement. Borrell had dispatched the two sides, Tehran and Washington, a “final draft” of a possible agreement last month, but he now believes that neither of the two parties has made any mutual decision.

Washington and Tehran have been unable to find a common ground with respect to the status of a probe into Iran’s nuclear program by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The US has also rejected, downrightly, Iran’s demand that it must continue to receive the economic benefits of sanctions relief even if the deal later torpedoes.

“At a certain moment, my responsibility as co-ordinator is to say ‘that’s enough, this is the most balanced text I can produce taking into account all views’,” Borrell said, referring to the draft text.  “Then we started a process of interactions , an interactive process is good if it converges,” he said. “They  [US and Iran] were converging to a closer position. But then the last interactions were not converging. It was diverging," according to Borrell.