The Iranian flag waved in front of the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria on May 23, 2021. WASHINGTON, December 4 Reuters -- Iran abandoned any compromises it had made in talks to revive its 2015 nuclear deal with major powers, pocketed those made by others and demanded more during the indirect U.S.-Iran talks this week, a senior U.S. State Department official said.
The Iranian official said this week that during the first such talks in more than five months, Tehran disappointed not only the United States and its European allies, but also China and Russia, which were historically more sympathetic to Iran during the first such talks in more than five months.
The United States still wanted to revive the deal, under which Iran had limited its nuclear program in exchange for economic sanctions, but the official told reporters that time was running short.
The indirect U.S.-backed Iranian talks on saving the deal broke off in Vienna on Friday, as European officials expressed dismay at the demands of Iran's hard-line government.
The talks were the first with delegates sent by Iran's anti-Western President Ebrahim Raisi, who was elected in June and whose government had said it needed time to prepare for new talks after the six rounds between April and June.
A senior U.S. official said Iran used the time to speed up its nuclear program in provocative ways and stonewall the U.N. nuclear watchdog charged with monitoring its eroding compliance with the deal.
The official blamed Iran for not a mutual return to compliance with the original deal struck with Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States, while attempting to leave the door ajar for talks.
Tehran placed the onus on Washington, noting that then President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the deal in 2018 and imposed U.S. sanctions, prompting Iran to start violating the nuclear restrictions in 2019.
The agreement imposed strict limits on Iran's uranium enrichment activities, extending the time it would need to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon if it chose to, to at least a year from around two to three months.
Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons, saying it only wants to master nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
He suggested that their positions may be evolving, as he said it was not clear whether China and Russia might ramp up economic pressure on Iran if talks don't work.
They were quite taken aback by the degree to which Iran had walked back its own compromises and then doubled down on requests that it made, he said. They do share a sense of disappointment, to put it diplomatically. The U.S. official said he did not know when the next round of talks would resume - other people had said next week - and said the date was less important than Iran's willingness to negotiate.
American officials have said they would consider other options if they can't revive the deal, a phrase that is understood to include the possibility of military ones, however remote.
State TV said that Iranian air defenses fired a missile as part of an exercise on Saturday over the town of Natanz, which houses nuclear installations. Local residents reported hearing a large blast.