New talks in final bid to save Iran nuclear deal

Iran and the US resumed indirect talks on Tuesday aimed at rescuing Tehran’s tattered nuclear deal with world powers.

Tehran’s top nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani met EU official Enrique Mora in Doha, and Mora began passing messages to Rob Malley, the US special representative for Iran.

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said the talks aimed to reestablish the deal “in a way that supports and enhances security, stability and peace in the region and opens new horizons for broader regional cooperation and dialogue” with Iran.

Iran and world powers agreed in 2015 to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, under which Tehran limited its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. In 2018, President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the deal and began reimposing sanctions, raising tensions across the wider Middle East and sparking a series of attacks and incidents.

Talks in Vienna about reviving the agreement have been stalled since March. Since the deal’s collapse, Iran has been running advanced centrifuges and rapidly growing a stockpile of enriched uranium.

As the talks began in Doha on Tuesday, Iran’s nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami confirmed that Tehran had begun installing a new cascade of advanced centrifuges at its Fordo underground nuclear plant.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog, said earlier that Iran was planning to enrich uranium through a new chain of 166 advanced IR-6 centrifuges at the site. A cascade is a group of centrifuges working together to enrich uranium more quickly.

“We will follow measures according to the plans made,” Eslami said.

Iran removed 27 IAEA surveillance cameras this month to pressure the West into making a deal. The IAEA’s director-general warned it could deal a “fatal blow” to the accord as Tehran enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons grade.

Nonproliferation experts warn Iran has enriched enough uranium up to 60 percent purity — a short technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90 percent — to make one nuclear weapon, should it decide to do so.

Building a nuclear bomb would still take Iran more time if it pursued a weapon, analysts say, though they warn Tehran’s advances make the program more dangerous. Israel has threatened in the past that it would carry out a preemptive strike to stop Iran, and is already thought to have carried out a series of sabotage attacks and assassinations targeting Iranian officials.