Britain: Still time for a ‘last chance’ nuclear deal

“This is the last chance for Iran to come to the negotiating table with a serious resolution to this issue, which has to be agreeing the terms of the JCPOA,” British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said.

“This is their last chance and it is vital that they do so. We will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon,” she added.

The remarks came as envoys from Iran and the P4+1 group of countries — Britain, France, Russia, and China plus Germany — are engaged in the seventh round of talks in Vienna aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, official known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Tehran says the revival of the landmark agreement would require the US to remove its anti-Iran sanctions three years after Washington walked out of the multilateral agreement and imposed more sanctions on Tehran to kill the deal.

On Saturday, Germany’s foreign minister warned time was running out to find a way to revive the nuclear deal between world powers and Iran, speaking after meetings with her counterparts from G7 countries.

“Time is running out,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told reporters in Liverpool, England, where G7 foreign ministers are meeting.

“It has shown in the last days that we do not have any progress,” she stated.

Baerbock noted Iran had resumed the talks with a position that set the negotiations back six months.

Iran’s President Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi has stressed the two draft documents laying out Tehran’s proposals to the other parties to the Vienna talks show the Islamic Republic’s seriousness in the negotiations.

Raisi noted if the other sides are determined, we will reach a good deal with them.

Almost eleven months after Joe Biden was sworn in as president, the United States still refuses to remove the sanctions, despite Biden’s pledge to undo the Iran policy of his predecessor, Donald Trump, and end his “maximum pressure” campaign.