Thread by @AliVaez

Almost 5 months to the day that E3 negotiators left #ViennaTalks with, as @PhilippeErrera put it, "our job done", it's back to the Asparagus Palace - first time all of the P4+1, U.S., and Iran will be in the same place at the same time since March. [Thread]

2/ At the time, success seemed within touching distance: "The FTO and a pair of footnotes", as one senior Western official told me. Iran and @IAEAOrg were agreeing on a roadmap to address safeguards, concluded in Tehran on 5 March. But that's also when the unravelling began.

3/ Russia's FM asked for sweeping sanctions exemptions. EU coordinator paused in-person talks. The IAEA probe made little headway. The FTO debate kicked off in DC. Censure resolution in June --> nuclear escalation. More U.S. sanx. And some files thought closed in Vienna reopened.

4/ The brief round in Doha yielded nothing. 3 issues remaining: If FTO stays on, whether there was room on other sanctions. Guarantees & closure of IAEA probe. EU's argument, as put by @JosepBorrellF, is that what's on the table is best available formula.
ft.com/content/e759d2…

5/ Suspect the parties would not be returning to Vienna if exchanges since had made no headway at all. So the question is whether that gives a sufficient base to build off in the next few days, or if it seems that the bottom lines from the U.S. and Iran are irreconcilable.

6/6 Past weeks have demonstrated what alternative looks like, and it's not great: More sanctions, more nuclear escalation, to uncertain ends. Resumed in-person negotiations no guarantee of success - but given certainty of failure w/out them, an opportunity worth seizing.