we know that some economists argue that any stated policy is about building forward better for the developing world she returns the al-jazeera washington the very latest on that story and others on our website at al-jazeera dot com al-jazeera to . play again i'm fully battle with the headlines on al-jazeera iran and the u.s. say they're making constructive progress in the latest efforts to revive the 2050 nuclear deal to new working groups will focus on getting each side back into compliance in was a week ago now that we find this position realistic and promising it could be the start of correcting the bad process that has taken diplomacy to a didn't we welcome these comments. brazil has recorded more than 4000 coronavirus tests in a single day only the u.s.

and peru have reached that threshold nearly 337000 people have died since the start of the pandemic the u.s. president says anyone over the age of 18 will be able to be vaccinated from the middle of this month but joe biden is warning that covert $1000.00 infections are still increasing with a new a very inspiring rapidly after of those new cases are from just a handful of states the virus is spreading because we have too many people who see the end of this secret the finish line already let me be deadly earnest with you we aren't at the finish line. we still have a lot of work to do. we're still in a life and death race against these fires and to get more people vaccinated we need everyone to wash their hands socially distance and mask and recommended mass from the c.d.c. . the type of restraints used by the police officer charged with killing george

strong it has come under scrutiny in a u.s. court the 7th day of the child in minneapolis focus on day veins use of force and how offices should deescalate crisis situations women and children who are sleeping are among at least $100.00 civilians killed in fighting in northeast sifi opiah since friday the violence is a flare up in a long running dispute over a contested land in the af our region the territories claimed by both somali and try. and ethiopia is accusing egypt and sudan of obstructing talks over its contest have mega dam on the blue nile that's after 3 days of meetings in the democratic republic of congo between the nations failed to reach an agreement ethiopia is building the grand renaissance dam to produce electricity but its neighbors fear it will affect their water supply those are the headlines i have more news for you on al-jazeera after anti story.

attempts to salvage the 2015 nuclear deal the u.s. and iran hold indirect talks in vienna donald trump pulled america out joe biden once back again but what are the challenges ahead in the 2 sides find agreement this is inside story. hello and welcome to the program. the disputes been going on for months about who should take the 1st step toward reviving the 2015 nuclear deal now the u.s.

and iran are engaged in direct talks in vienna while representatives from 6 other signatories of the agreement china russia germany france the u.k. and the e.u. old official meetings the u.s. and iranian delegations will be in separate rooms with the e.u. shuttling between them the negotiations are aimed at getting all parties back onside after the u.s. under then president donald trump withdrew from the pact in 2018 the deal was aimed at making it harder for iran to develop a nuclear weapon and tehran agreed to curb its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions now the washington or tehran can see an early breakthrough in the vienna talks we don't underestimate the scale of the challenges ahead these are early days we don't anticipate an early or immediate breakthrough as these discussions we fully expect will be difficult but we do believe that these discussions with arp. and in turn are partners with iran is

a healthy stepped step forward but iran says progress could be made if washington is serious a government spokesman said the negotiations are on the right track that hollow holes that are not posing in the shadows we are not optimistic not pessimistic above the top of this meeting but we are confident that we're on the right check and if america's will see business an honesty is proven it could be a sign for a bit a future that if you choose of peace and security for the region and the world and a peaceful life for people in this region surely the full implementation of this agreement will be finalized within the coming weeks but let's have a look at how we got here former u.s. president donald trump pulled the u.s. out of the accord in 2018 calling it the worst deal ever negotiated trumpery impose sanctions on tehran with more than 1500 measures to iran responded by scaling back its commitments to the agreement and enriching its uranium levels beyond the 2015 cap european signatories have tried to maintain the deal and keep doing business

with tehran iran want sanctions lifted before it returns to full compliance of the accord but the u.s. insists iran must dismantle some of its nuclear activities before it's prepared to rejoin the deal our diplomatic editor james bays is at the united nations he says the actions of the previous u.s. administration have complicated the negotiations between iran and washington. all the key participants find themselves back in vienna the austrian capital is where the iran nuclear deal was signed nearly 6 years ago but so much has changed since that signing in the summer of 2015 it was the trumpet ministration in 2018 that pulled out of the deal prefer to go from maximum pressure policy against iran many experts believe that that didn't end up isolating iran in fact it isolated on this issue the u.s. with some of its closest allies nearly all its closest allies with the exception of

israel saudi arabia and the united arab emirates iran waited for a year and then decided that it would start to not comply with some of the details of the nuclear program and now they've got the challenge of trying to put everything back together and the problem in recent months has been the new biden administration says it wants back into the deal iran says it wants the u.s. back into the deal but it's a question of who been prepared to move 1st the iranians saying that the sanctions have to all be lifted before they come back into compliance and that's why we've got this rather unusual format for the talks in vienna a creative format that the europeans have been working on what's known as proximity talks what we've got today is the iranians meeting with the p 4 plus one for permanent members of the security council plus germany in a 5 star hotel in the center of vienna the grand hotel the u.s.

though are not there they're meeting in another 5 star hotel almost directly opposite the imperial hotel and the e.u. representatives will go between the u.s. hotel and the hotel of all the others passing messages back and forth trying to make progress the idea is that rather than one side having to move 1st both sides are going to make a comprehensive list. a list of all the sanctions that the u.s. house has to has to lift a list of all from the u.s. of what iran needs to do to come back into compliance with the nuclear program and the idea will be to get both of these things to happen at the same time it sounds easy it is going to be very complex. all right let's bring in our guests in washington d.c. hillary mann leverett is former u.s. diplomat and co-author of going to run joining us from tehran ahmed was having a professor of political science at the iran university and in vienna tara crow

former head of the verification and security policy coordination office at the international atomic energy agency welcome to the program hillary let me start with you today what is it that has fundamentally changed that allowed these talks to happen right now i mean there's been months of posturing by both the u.s. and iran did this come in any way as a surprise. i don't say it was a surprise but it is a new development and i think that the new development that essentially led up to this new development was that the united states dropped its insistence which was really a leftover from the trunk administration its insistence that iran meet directly with u.s. officials without u.s. officials or before u.s. officials would give any sanctions relief to iran and that was essentially the track approach meet with them meet with the united states without the united states easing sanctions in any way biden started off in office essentially with this trump

approach now the difference in the change is that this didn't work and so the u.s. envoy rob malley was able to convince others here in washington because there's a real divide here in washington right now he was able to convince people here that there could be indirect. interact talks with iran essentially proximity talks what's happening right now in vienna. and he said publicly and this is critically important publicly rob malley the u.s. envoy said that the united states understood that you are not the united states would have to lift the sanctions that are inconsistent with the 2015 chase e.p.o. lay the iran nuclear deal essentially what iran has been demanding from the start. tarik of course nobody expects these proximity talks will be easy but how long and arduous do you think this process will end up being well i think it will take some time because both sides apparently are coming into this discussion with pretty hard

line positions iran's position as reiterated by the foreign minister job is very is that the united states 1st needs to remove all of the sanctions that were imposed under the company ministration and also possibly compensation for the financial damages to the iranian economy on the u.s. side there are 30 demands that iran reversed the steps that have taken to step outside of the uranium enrichment the limits of the j.c.b. away so i think the europeans have a bit of a challenge to try and bridge this gap although there are some suggestions of a phased approach or a step by step or action for action approach that i think we need to wait a couple of days to see how this will that out the 2 sides are meeting here in vienna to what else that are pretty much opposite each other with the europeans shuttling back and forth how many how confident do iranian officials feel right now about the idea that they are on the right track to try and revive the deal i think

they understand that this is just the beginning i mean usually these kinds of talks are very complicated and they do take a lot of time and nevertheless i think the americans understand that they have a very narrow window of opportunity if they want to make a deal with the government to present rowhani the presidential campaign for the u.a.e. the elections they actually start in just a couple weeks in iran so if actually the negotiations pan out further than that then i think we will have to wait until september when iran has a new president and there is a very good chance that the conservatives might win the election and they were critical. well of the deal from the start you have to understand that the mood in teheran is a lot of skepticism in regards to the americans because they essentially left the deal very easily in iran had to remain in the deal for over

a year obliging by its side of the deal without getting any economic sanction relieve us so the mood is not very optimistic i would say hillary hama just mentioned these looming presidential elections in iran that will be taking place in june how concerned are members of the by the administration about the potential outcome of that is how it is expected that conservative hardliners may prevail in these upcoming elections how much more difficult is that going to make reviving this deal and also negotiating going forward i think here the one element of consensus that i that i pick up within the biden administration is that they understand that there will be the next president of iran will be more conservative in a sense in american political terms are more right wing are hard line and more difficult to negotiate with there is consensus that that is going to happen that is a fait accompli the problem with that for the current negotiations is that there is

some concern here about continuing to negotiate with the current team with president rouhani his current team because well they really be able to deliver under the next president of iran kind of you know it's a bit of a mirror imaging projecting from the u.s. side because this is what happened of course on the u.s. side when president obama was president we agreed to one thing in one trump became president he decided to follow another path so there is a sense here that iran could do the same thing the bigger picture here though is not so much who is going to be in power in iran but there is just a real reluctance here within the baton administration and certainly within congress to either. go back to that 80 p. away that's kind of the unstated elephant in the room if you. americans understand when and i didn't ministration that if we go back into the g.p.l. a united states would have to not only lift the sanctions that trump in we would

have to live almost all neatly relate sanctions legislatively with congress by 2023 and that's something that in the biden administration they understand they can't tarik what are the questions that iran is going to have to answer going forward related to nuclear research and development it is engaged in and how easy or difficult is going to be to establish a continuity of knowledge for the. well that's a very good question this is something that the trump name should have thought about before the exit that that just be a way that or nearly 2 years now iran has been ramping up its enrichment program they have acquired experience in manufacturing centrifuges production of advanced centrifuges they have actually 15 designs of which 6 designs are producing and richer any i am including a 1000 centrifuges at fordo that are producing 20 percent enriched uranium so iran

knowledge base and experience shows base has increased considerably and this cannot be reversed the question is that iran is on the hook or relate more to safeguards and previous activities prior to 2003 where there is alleging that iran carried out under their activities. a material without declaring it. at 4 look actions one marty bahamonde one this lobbyist hans yon with the site of the high research center that was demolished won this but it was about which is on the outskirts of toronto where used equipment was stored and there is about this and. vicinity of. where at all before sites picked up particles of uranium back pepin manipulated or sort of process. thus far. that iran limitations are not technically feasible iran's response to these relate

to issues that are nearly 2 decades old and should the books should be closed and we should move forward but from the point of view from a 5th or verification implementation perspective these issues need to be clarified one way or another how many you heard hillary in her previous answer mention the fact that it's going to be difficult for the biden administration to try to lift all the sanctions that have been imposed on iran especially the trump era sanctions let me ask you when it comes to iran's perspective we've heard again and again from officials in tehran that they want to see all sanctions lifted before they can really start negotiating with the u.s. is there any room there for negotiation or are they really going to stick to this is this going to be a sticking point going forward i think iran is going to stick to that plan because

that plan was actually specified by 2 law harmony the supreme leader of iran and the reason for that is if you look at this from iran's perspective there is a lot of mistrust regarding the mary killings i mean from iran's perspective iran gave a lot of concessions under the nuclear deal and then even though the nuclear deal was in trying in a united nations security council resolution essentially making it international law nevertheless donald trump easily withdrew and iran is actually something less oil today than it was before signing the deal so it's actually doing worse then when it signed the deal so i think it's going to be very difficult in that same. and when biden came into power there was initially some optimism that we do understand regarding the u.s. congress and being get it it's very tricky of course with the senate being completely spit split between republicans and democrats nevertheless i think biden

did have the opportunity to at least lift some of the sanctions using executive orders nevertheless he didn't do that in so far he's been following the so-called maximum pressure campaign of the trunk administration and essentially iran didn't appease trump with all the pressure that existed during those 4 years so i don't know why they are following the same policy that essentially bay are admitting that it failed hillary i just want to ask you to expand a little bit more on the point you were making earlier about just how complicated the situation is when it comes to the sanctions especially the ones imposed by the trumpet ministration i mean these were put in place essentially to make it impossible for a new administration to reenter the deal where they are not yes they were and certainly you know the special envoy and his deputy know this very very well the interesting thing and this is something that i think is not really understood is

why didn't president biden when he was when he was rolling that all of the other contentious controversial trump decisions the trump decision to pull the united states out of the paris climate treaty the truck decision to impose what was carde a muslim ban on people coming to the united states from predominantly muslim countries when president biden rescinded the trunk policies on the u.s. border with mexico all of these very harsh controversial policies biden rescinded those with the snap of the finger within 24 hours why didn't he do that and trance policy rescinding us commitments to the iraq going to asia this is a very important question and i think it's because within the hour. administration there is a real split there are people within the biden ministration not just congress who do not really want to go back to the g c p a way to the iran nuclear deal as it was agreed in 2015 they want to renegotiate it they want to impose more restrictions on iran and for this to last longer the

people within the biden ministration are not so much against sanctions they're just against the way that the trump administration did it they would like to have the same sions regime that essentially gives some control over iran's can economize any control over to the development of its nuclear program and allows iran to have some breathing room to get some money to get some of its assets but not to be completely free of these these restrictions so the complication is not so much a legal or bureaucratic problem within the united states it's a quite it's a problem of political will is that president biden looks at the middle east looks at iran in a fundamentally different way than president obama did obama look at iran as a great opportunity like when president nixon went to china and opened u.s. relations with china that's obama looked at it biden doesn't see it that way at all he sees iran as a problem to contain hillary if i could just follow up with you though real quick you mentioned the fact that there are members of the by the ministration that would

essentially like to renegotiate the deal would not that take leverage i mean does the u.s. have leverage to do something like that right now. there are certainly people within the body administration that think that they do and they in some ways they think that what trump did as as unsuccessful as it was has given the biden administration the leverage it needs to get what they they say they want a longer and stronger to my senses my analysis is it's not so much a longer and stronger geo is if they really want to park the iran issue they want to put iran over to the side so that president biden can focus on his very ambitious domestic legislative agenda and try to really contain iran as a problem. they don't see you ron in terms of having a real in terms of being an opportunity for us foreign policy and strategy they don't look at it in the bigger strategic picture tarik under the deals restrictions iran's breakout time this is the amount of time necessary to assemble sufficient

fissile material for a nuclear weapon it had increased to at least a year where is it at now i knew you would ask this question this concept of breakout time is really a very silly concept this is not a criticism of you it's of those who advance this. for iraq for the country to break out or unquote it would need to make somewhere around you know 10 or 15 deliverable nuclear weapons it makes no sense to quote unquote breakout to make nuclear weapon and pain to a target on one forehead iran as far as we know has not tested everyone previous if the bill of carrying a nuclear explosive device. this device would need to survive being shot up into space really entering the atmosphere at a velocity of 5 kilometers or more per 2nd surviving extreme heat and pressures the

fusing mechanism the detonating mechanism all need to survive so that at the point that. the designers have designed their device to explode the device will explode and in any case iran does not have the capability to manufacture a deliverable warhead based on all the evidence that we have seen thus far so the concept of a breakout time actually is very damaging concept arguing in terms of whether it was my pre months or 6 weeks really doesn't make any sense muddies the picture and confuses the situation over the past 2 years iran like in the past has created a number of bargaining chips i'm like you like to pass in 15 when it had 2000 kilograms 2 metric tons of enriched uranium it now has 3 metric tons of enriched uranium but it only has about 7 kilograms of highly and 20 percent enriched uranium which is not even sufficient for one nuclear weapon you need about $25.00 for

a newcomer states like iran to make. explosive from highly enriched uranium so i think one should not get into this concept of a breakout time when it's confusing once out on this ruling 1001 should deal with the situation as it is on the ground the obama administration was only able to make the j.c.b. away because greed to iran's demand to continue enrichment which is allowed under the j.c.b. away albeit a maximum of 300 kilograms at 3.67 percent enriched uranium it's a maximum of $5060.00 centrifuges so iran now has nearly $7000.00 centrifuges it is operating 5 more at bats designed. centrifuges so that is where the focus should be to return to the june 2000 and july 2015 limits and then talk about some sort of a broader deal iran already is committed under the nuclear nonproliferation treaty

not to develop nuclear weapons so that is already there so we really shouldn't lose the main issue with all these other confusing issues of iran should never have a nuclear weapon that should be a breakout time all of these things are covered one way or another if we get back to the j.c. you know way and lastly i think the bike in the ministrations was also focused when iran interfered with verification system and stopped the implementation of the additional protocol the i.a.e.a. director general very astutely rescued the situation where iran is continuing to gather gather this data and allow the simmonds to gather online data or for the use so that as you mention it can meant then continuity of knowledge carranza push back i'm so sorry i don't mean to interrupt you we only have about a minute left i want to ask how much one more question here how many expert expectations going to this are very low but i want to ask you what do you believe

iranian officials think has to happen for these talks to be considered in any way a success. well 1st of all when we're saying iran is close to the bomb would have to remember that netanyahu has been saying this since the 1990 s. and that was over 20 years ago and they were saying that they have to bomb iran in 20092010 that was 10 years ago and iran is not even close to the bomb even now regarding the negotiations from iran's perspective 1st of all iran does not want to renegotiate the deal iran is not thinking about a broader deal why she won't give more concessions when even the current deal has failed and i think the path forward is for the americans to return to the deal it was them who left the deal for him and then you're on his set that it will move very quickly after that and return to its obligations under the deal all right

we've run out of times we're going to have to leave the conversation there thank you so much to all of our guests hillary mann leverett hamad mousavi and tariq routh and thank you for watching you can see the program again any time by visiting our website others here at out com and for further discussion go to our facebook page that's facebook dot com forward slash a.j. inside story you can also join the conversation on twitter our handle is at a.j. inside story from imagine from the whole team here if i for now.

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george floyd is now on trial all over europe as the world watches this historic case unfold in minneapolis we'll have live coverage from inside the courtroom as it happens and the latest reaction to derek children trial on al-jazeera. fully back to bill in doha with a look at our main stories on al-jazeera iran and the usa they're making constructive progress in the latest efforts to revive the 2050 nuclear deal to a new working groups will focus on getting needs side back into compliance diplomatic editor james space has more on the talks from the united nations the problem we've had since the beginning of the year since the inaugurations is generally the 20th is both sides have been unwilling to move 1st to give up something.