Iran: Progress on Sanctions Relief at Swiss Talks with U.S.

There will also be a dispute resolution group that will seek to make sure the Memorandum of Understanding is put into effect.

By Juan Cole, Informed Comment

Fars News reported on comments by Iranian negotiator Hossein Ghorbanzadeh about the course of the talks on Sunday at the Burgenstock Resort near Lucerne, Switzerland.

He indicated that real progress was made on some issues, especially the conditional lifting of US sanctions on Iranian oil and petroleum products, saying that draft language to that effect will soon be finalized and then put into practice.

(It might be noted that only Congress can permanently lift sanctions, but that in the case of Syria Trump has been issuing serial 6-month waivers on sanctions from the executive branch.)

Ghorbanzadeh said the discussions focused on the five principal paragraphs of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) , as envisaged in clause 13.

These included: 1) the end of the war on all fronts [i.e. including Lebanon], 2) the lifting of the blockade, 3) the reopening of the Strait, 4) the temporary lifting of sanctions on Iranian petroleum, and 5) the unfreezing of Iran’s sequestered assets.