Iran, Austria, and the Bomb
Indirect talks between Iran and the United States over a possible nuclear deal continue in Vienna
Servus!
Indirect talks between Iran and the United States over a possible nuclear deal continue in Vienna. In May 2018, the Trump administration withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the previous agreement reached in Vienna in 2015 which placed restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of Western sanctions. Dumping the JCPOA meant a sanctions snapback; at the same time, Iran set about ignoring the limits the agreement had placed on its nuclear program, exceeding restrictions on stockpiles of low-enriched uranium while developing new centrifuges to accelerate enrichment.
Iranian and American negotiators have returned to Vienna with the former desiring an end to Trump-era sanctions on Iranian individuals, companies, and international firms doing business with Iran. The latter want to return to the JCPOA—which was, after all, negotiated by the Obama administration in which Joe Biden was vice-president—though only if Iran complies once more with the agreement’s limits on its nuclear activity. The two sides are camped out at different hotels in Vienna as Iran refuses to engage in direct talks with the U.S.. It has been for the other parties in the so-called P5+1—Britain, France, Germany, China, and Russia—to facilitate negotiations.
On Saturday, Reuters quoted Iran’s deputy foreign minister Abbas Araqchi as saying that sanctions “on Iran's energy sector, which include oil and gas, or those on the automotive industry, financial, banking and port sanctions, all should be lifted based on agreements reached so far.” The U.S. State Department was not as bullish, describing the talks as being in an “unclear place.” National security advisor Jake Sullivan said Friday, “It is still uncertain as to whether this will culminate in a deal in Vienna.”
More perhaps Iran or the U.S., it is the European powers, the E3 of Britain, France, and Germany, who crave America’s return to the JCPOA, the lifting of sanctions, and Iran’s compliance with the JCPOA’s parameters. The same can be said of the EU as a whole. Austria’s foreign minister Alexander Schallenberg said in a meeting with his European counterparts in February that there was “no alternative” to the Iran deal and that the only way out of the current crisis is a “workable dialogue between Iran and the United States.”
For Austria, the Iran deal, negotiated in Vienna, is a matter of prestige, its success vital to upholding Austria’s image as a bridge-builder and facilitator between opposing international forces. (Vienna believes it can be a possible forum for talks between the Belorussian government and opposition, for example.) Nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament is also an Austrian foreign policy goal. As I wrote last week (“Chernobyl”), Austria is not only opposed to nuclear weapons but also nuclear energy; Austria’s Green Party see the talks as an opportunity to place Iran on a course towards renewable as opposed to nuclear power.
But as pressure groups like Stop the Bomb would remind us1, Austria’s interests here are also economic. In November 2006, the head of the Iranian Chamber of Commerce described Austria as its “gateway to the European Union”; in 2018, Austria took in €457 million worth of imports from Iran. Meanwhile, about 650 Austrian companies have business interests in Iran, principally in machine-building and electronics, and as the Austrian embassy in Iran acknowledges, trade has been made “more difficult” by the “indirect effects” of American sanctions. Austrian firms, to be sure, would want any barriers to trade with Iran removed; the United States’ return to the JCPOA would facilitate that.
Bis bald!
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Open the Gates
Lower Austria has become the first state in Austria to open up its vaccination program to all age groups. By May 10, all residents of the state over the age of 16 will be able to make a vaccination appointment. As of 23:59 on May 4, 31.89 percent of Austrian adult residents had received their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine.
May Day
The Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) used May 1, Labor Day, to call for post-pandemic infrastructure spending, tax reform, and help for the long-term unemployed to retrain as care workers. For the second year running, the SPÖ cancelled its traditional May Day rally outside Vienna’s city hall due to the coronavirus.
Femicide
A 35-year-old woman and mother-of-two was shot and killed in her apartment by her ex-partner on Thursday evening, bringing renewed attention to the problem of femicide in Austria. Of the 43 people murdered in Austria in 2020, 31 were women, making Austria the only EU member state in which more women were murdered than men.
With the caveat that Stop the Bomb takes a rather extreme position on Iran, namely the closure of Iran’s embassy in Vienna and an end to all forms of cooperation with the Islamic Republic.