US won’t negotiate sanctions with Russia to save Iran nuclear deal

Washington to explore alternatives to deal without Russia if Moscow doesn’t back away from demands for exemptions.

Wendy Sherman said US officials were still seeking an agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program despite the Iranian missile strike in Iraq. Picture: AFP

The US won’t negotiate exemptions to Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia to save the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and could try to strike a separate accord excluding Moscow, a senior US official said, a diplomatic effort complicated by an Iranian missile attack on the Iraqi city of Arbil that sent American troops rushing for shelter.

With one of President Joe Biden’s top foreign-policy goals imperilled, the US official said Washington would start exploring alternatives to the deal over the next week if Russia didn’t back away from its demands for written guarantees exempting Russia from Ukraine-related sanctions that could curtail its future trade with Iran. Such guarantees could undercut the West’s punishing array of sanctions levelled at Russia over the Ukraine invasion.

“I don’t see the scope for going beyond what is within the confines of the JCPOA,” the US official said, referring to the 2015 nuclear deal formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. “I think it’s pretty safe to say that there is no room for making exemptions beyond those.”

Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said US officials were still seeking an agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program despite the Iranian missile strike in Iraq. “If Iran has a nuclear weapon, its ability to project power into the Middle East and to deter us, our allies and partners is enormous,” Ms Sherman said on Fox News Sunday.

“So President Biden believes very strongly, as does Secretary Blinken, as do I, that we need to make sure that Iran never obtains a nuclear weapon, and then we also need to deal with their malign behaviour in the region.”

Time is pressing. US and European officials say Iran’s nuclear work has expanded close to a point that the deal’s main benefit to the West – keeping Iran months away from amassing enough nuclear fuel for a nuclear weapon – would be impossible.

Iran is just a few weeks from that so-called breakout point.

The senior American official said an agreement between Iran and the US was “within reach”, saying only a few issues were holding up a deal when talks in ­Vienna were broken off on Friday because of Russia’s demand.

The official called Russia’s demands “the most serious stumbling block and obstacle to reaching a deal”.

European officials say Russia had promised to respond with its precise demands for guarantees in the next few days.

They have also started to explore among themselves options for pursuing a deal without Russia, two diplomats said. “We would know within a week whether Russia is ­prepared to back down,” the US official said.

Earlier this month, as Western diplomats were seeking to wrap up the talks, Russia requested guarantees that its work under the JCPOA would be exempted from Western sanctions over Ukraine.

The US had given sanctions waivers for the 2015 deal.

However, after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters Moscow wanted much broader guarantees, its chief negotiator in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, presented a second paper to European negotiators on Tuesday seeking to protect all future trade and investment against Ukraine-related sanctions.

It couldn’t be determined whether Iran would be willing to negotiate an alternative deal without Russia, or whether China – which has grown closer to ­Russia – would participate.

The Wall Street Journal