PARIS: France, Britain and Germany warned Russia on Saturday that its demands to have its trade guaranteed with Iran risked the collapse of an almost-completed nuclear deal.

Negotiators have reached the final stages of discussions to restore the so-called JCPOA deal, which lifted sanctions on Iran in return for curbs on its nuclear programme.

However, last Saturday Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov unexpectedly demanded sweeping guarantees that Russian trade with Iran would not be affected by sanctions imposed on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

“Nobody should seek to exploit JCPOA negotiations to obtain assurances that are separate to the JCPOA,” France, Britain and Germany — the so-called E3 European parties to the 2015 accord — said in a joint statement.

“This risks the collapse of the deal,” they said.

The deal on the table should be concluded with the utmost urgency, they added. Washington has already insisted it will not agree to Russia’s demands.

The 11-month-old international talks seek to bring Iran back into compliance with the deal’s restrictions on its rapidly advancing nuclear activities and bring the United States back into the accord it left in 2018 under former President Donald Trump.

Oil markets are closely watching the progress of talks to see whether restrictions on Iranian crude exports might be lifted, which could help to offset disruption to supplies from Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Negotiators in Vienna said on Friday they had halted talks despite having almost sealed a deal to revive the JCPOA.

The current round of negotiations started in late November in Vienna between Britain, China, France, Germany, Iran and Russia, with the US taking part indirectly.

After the talks halted on Friday, the United States put the ball in Iran and Russia’s court. “We are confident that we can achieve mutual return to compliance... (if) those decisions are made in places like Tehran and Moscow,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.

Russia’s ambassador to the UN in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, told reporters outside the talks venue that he rejected “attempts to put all the blame on the Russian Federation”, insisting that other parties to the talks “need additional time”.

Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2022