Getting food out of Ukraine a daunting task

European leaders are desperately trying to figure out how to get food grain out of Ukraine. Russia last week said it would open maritime corridors to unblock ports such as Odesa on the Black Sea if sanctions against the country were lifted.

Politicians are looking at everything from naval escorts to shifting whatever’s possible overland to the Baltic. Officials at ports, logistics companies and in the agriculture industry interviewed across the region say they are scouring maps for solutions like diverting road transport and reviving rail links such as the one connecting Galati.

The task is complicated by a dearth of truck drivers and the fact that the Soviets used a wider track gauge than the European standard. That has caused up to 30 days of delays at borders for existing routes, the EU said, as cargo needs to be transferred onto compatible rolling stock and customs infrastructure gets overwhelmed.

Ports in Romania and Poland, meanwhile, are backed up with traffic or already at capacity while there are shortages of specialized personnel to handle the surge in demand. Even with Ukrainian exports at a fraction of what they were, trade officials warn that bottlenecks will get worse as the rest of Europe starts harvesting its wheat next month.

“The scale of the problem is enormous,” Taras Kachka, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Economic Development, told a conference. “In the last 15 years, we developed our infrastructure in a way that it cannot be simply replaced by another destination, another port.”

Ukraine is a major wheat, corn and barley supplier and tops global sunflower-oil sales. Future crops will undoubtedly shrink due to the war, but it still has 20 million tons of backlogged grain from last year. 

Ukraine is expanding export capacity at its western border and simplifying trade arrangements with the EU. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on May 24 the EU was working to get what’s stuck in Ukraine to global markets by opening “solidarity lanes” to European ports as well as financing different modes of transportation. Ukraine’s ambassador to Warsaw expects Poland to be the conduit for 80% of Ukrainian grain.

But people on the ground say that’s easier said than done when you look at the map, particularly the rail network.

In Slovakia, the main traffic operator transported 18,000 tons of corn from Ukraine last month across 12 trains, and private freight companies are also involved. The issue is that cargoes from Ukraine’s broad-gauge wagons need to be reloaded onto standard Europe size ones or the container section transferred onto different wheels. 

Poland has a 400-kilometer broad-gauge railway linking Ukraine with its industrial southwest region of Silesia. It’s been used mainly for steel products, and in recent weeks to carry refugees. State railway network operator PLK SA has started investing in boosting capacity, reversing its earlier focus on connections as far as China via Belarus.

In April, Poland and Ukraine also agreed to create a joint cargo company and simplify border rules. But with routes to Poland’s Baltic ports already busy and a shortage of wagons, there are doubts over whether Poland can boost volumes of Ukrainian grain much above 2 million tons a month anytime soon. That compares with the 5 to 6 million tons typically dispatched monthly via its Black Sea ports, said Roman Slaston, Director General of the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club industry group.

Romania is keen to upgrade Galati to ease congestion at Constanta on the Black Sea. Galati is connected by the broad-gauge railway that’s compatible with the Ukrainian system and may facilitate the quicker rerouting of grains. The government wants to fast-track the construction of the missing section of 4.6 kilometers and the work will take three months, Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca said last month.

Yet it’s still unclear who will do it, according to TTS, which has spent two months testing logistic options via railway or trucks. The route involves three countries and three different railway operators. Romania’s transport minister said he hopes to find a company to build the missing portion of track this week and may visit Galati with his Ukrainian counterpart.

“Ukraine was exporting 20 million tons of metals per year and even more grains only on water, so to think that it would be possible to completely replace these capacities is a dream,” said Petru Stefanut, TTS’s CEO. “What we’re all trying to do, is to help them as much as we can. But we can’t compare what they had and what they’ve lost.”

TTS has managed to transport about 200,000 tons of grains and metals from Ukraine in the past two months, though Stefanut is confident more will come as routing via the Danube becomes more efficient.

Any increase in supplies is critical after the war in Ukraine sparked growing fears of a food crisis. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Von der Leyen accused President Vladimir Putin of using “hunger and grain to wield power” as she decried Russia’s bombing of grain warehouses and blockading of Ukrainian ships filled with wheat in the Black Sea. About three-quarters of Ukrainian harvests are typically sold abroad, and it’s a key exporter to Africa, Asia and the Middle East as well as Europe.

Ukraine’s Agriculture Minister expects another 30 to 40 million tons of grain will need to be exported after harvests this summer and fall. While grain can be stored, farmers need to sell it to get funds for planting 2023 supplies, with winter-crops like wheat sown in just a few months.

Kees Huizinga, a Dutch farmer who lives in Ukraine and employs 400 people, used to be able to get a 25-ton truckload of his grain to Odesa terminals on the Black Sea and back within a day. Drivers are now spending a week in travel, queues and border checks — at triple the cost — to take deliveries on a new route, unloading just over the border in Romania. From there, it still needs to weave to its final destination. 

The EU has exempted grain imports from requiring veterinary or phytosanitary certificates to ease the transit. But in the three weeks to mid-May, Huizinga had only shipped out 150 tons. Normally, that would load in just a few hours. He worries that once Romania begins its own harvest soon, the logjams could worsen.

For now, the most realistic solution remains Romania, Constanta and the Sulina Canal that links the Black Sea with the Danube. The port’s customs agency has added staff to help handle the increase in shipments, with ships lining up to enter. The Romanian railway company has decluttered its port links and started improvement works, which may result in a 30% to 40% increase of transport capacity as soon as next year, port manager Florin Goidea said.

“We expect much larger quantities to arrive, this is only the beginning,” he said. “This summer will be very crowded. It won’t be easy for us, but we have to find the solutions.”

Spoils of Putin's war in Ukraine

I found reading the article titled “Spoils of Putin’s war” by Bloomberg on impacts of war in Ukraine on global economy interesting. While one may not necessarily endorse the content, there is a need to also explore the other side of the story.

Vladimir Putin may have failed to take Ukraine in a swift military strike, but his war has already been a success. The global economy is splintering, and the West’s conflicting imperatives—as well as those of the developing world—are slowly revealing themselves.

Putin has a long record of trying to sow discord, using misinformation to power sock puppets in the Brexit referendum and political campaigns of Donald Trump, among other examples. Though his latest gambit has backfired spectacularly in terms of weakening NATO, from the standpoint of economic division, the war on Ukraine may prove his crowning achievement. The fault lines are emerging.

There are at least four groups of diverging interests. In Ukraine and the Baltic states, defeating Russia is literally existential. But in Germany, France and Italy, the calculation is very different.

When it comes to imposing energy sanctions with teeth, Germany and Italy are dependent on Russia for roughly half of their natural gas imports and don’t have the infrastructure to implement a quick substitute. Berlin has even drawn up a three-phase plan if Russian gas is turned off, telling carmakers they may have to shut production lines to ensure families can heat their homes over winter. The Bundesbank has warned of recession if supplies are cut.

Italy has started rationing energy in public buildings. France is equally leery, knowing from the Gilet Jaunes (yellow vests) protests the kind of social unrest that can result from high fuel prices.

While Europe’s biggest powers say they plan to wean themselves off Russian imports, they need time. The renewed attempts to negotiate a ceasefire, even if it means asking Ukraine to cede even more territory to Russia, may be a solution, at least for the time being.

Across the English Channel and beyond the Atlantic, the economic consequences of the war (inflation notwithstanding) are looking less critical. The US is unwavering in its support for Ukraine’s resistance—not only to push Russia back to its borders but to send a clear message to China about its territorial ambitions in Taiwan.

But it helps that America’s economic considerations happen to align with its geopolitical goals. Supplying arms and munitions promises a bonanza for its powerful military industrial complex, while America’s relative self-sufficiency on energy and food insulates it from the worst repercussions of the war.

Moreover, there are longer-term financial benefits that may flow its way. As Republican Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but there is a huge economic opportunity. Europe is not going to be independent of natural gas. Why not burn American gas rather than Russian gas?”

In the UK, with little direct exposure to Russian gas and similarly aligned with President Joe Biden’s hard stance on Kremlin aggression, some business leaders think British industry can substitute for closed German factory lines. Not to mention that the UK is home to some of the biggest defense contractors in Europe.

While Europe wrings its hands and America and the UK see advantage, much of the rest of the world faces a grimmer prospect thanks to Putin’s war.

Russia is threatening a global food crisis by blockading the Black Sea, raising the prospect of a humanitarian catastrophe in the developing world and exposing the fragility of supply chains yet again after the initial protectionism of the pandemic. Export restrictions on food staples have been imposed by 19 countries.

Beata Javorcik, Chief Economist of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, estimates that 17% of the world’s traded calories are now landlocked. At Davos, she warned of riots and social upheaval as rocketing food prices bankrupt governments in the developing world.

Famines will indeed be blamed on Putin—but he is offering a simple way out: drop the sanctions. That’s arguably an impossible offer to an increasingly divided world.

 

Global oil markets under turmoil

During this past week, global oil markets faced plenty of turmoil. The European Union (EU) banned Russian oil, OPEC expressed intention to increase production, stockpiles declined in United States once again. At the end of the week, sentiment turned bullish with OPEC unable to calm the oil price rally.

China finally came out of its three-month lockdown nightmare, oil prices were moved by reports that Saudi Arabia and the UAE would seek to speed up the monthly increments of OPEC Plus. The oil group did in fact opt for about 650,000 barrel per day (bpd) increases in July and August.

It was anticipated that prices might genuinely come lower, closer to the US$110 mark. Unfortunately for oil bears, news of dropping US inventories, combined with the EU's decision to ban Russian oil imports, sent oil prices climbing once again. 

OPEC Plus members agreed to raise their overall production targets by 648,000 bpd in July and August, bringing the final unwinding of the oil group’s production cuts forward by one month on fears of ban on Russian oil.

The European Union finalized its prohibition of financing and financial assistance services for Russian oil cargoes, a measure that is set to come into effect after a wind-down period of six months, effectively banning EU entities from providing insurance to Russian trade. 

Iran cut gas supplies to Iraq a little more than one month after it had restarted them, with the decision stemming from the non-payment of arrears. Supplies were supposed to rise to 50 million cubic meters per day, as a result now Iraq faces widespread power shortages.

Russian Trade Ministry announced to limit the exports of noble gases, most notably neon, a key ingredient in making chips, aggravating a supply crunch that has already seen one of the world’s largest producers – Ukraine – disappear from the markets.

The government of Spain announced that it should be the EU that pays for any new natural gas interconnections between Spain and its European neighbors, with Madrid being completely independent of Russian energy supplies and taking in LNG instead.

Chevron CEO, Michael Wirth warned against banning fuel exports as a means of decreasing the price of oil products, saying that over the next few month product shortages will materialize, with Europe being the most likely candidate.

With Australia taken aback by a cold snap that sent heating demand spiking along with demand for natural gas, Canberra has called on the industry to help as gas prices have quadrupled and the government mandate to keep LNG at home could only be triggered from 2023.

Impact of ban on Russian oil on Asian markets

One of the long-term consequences of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and ongoing war for more than 100 days is the restructuring of export flows in the global oil market.

This will have direct consequences for Middle Eastern players, forcing them to choose whether to compete with Russia and each other or continue to coordinate their efforts.

In spite of the rumors that Russia might be suspended from the OPEC Plus deal, the current cooperation between Moscow and other oil producers may still survive and continue beyond September 2022, when the agreement on production cuts expires, although the chances of this happening are decreasing.

There are ongoing concerns about the stability of the oil market and keeping the cartel together is the only way to manage it. Even though its production capacity is declining, Russia remains an important player and one whose role in Asia, a key consumer market for Gulf oil producers, could potentially increase.

If there were questions during the earlier weeks of the conflict in Ukraine about whether the threat of sanctions and logistical bottlenecks would allow Moscow to redirect its oil exports from Europe to Asia, by now the answer is clear: yes, it can.

In the case of oil terminals in the west of Russia, the volume of oil supplies going to the East increased from 0.14 million barrels per day (mbpd) in January 2022 to 0.90 mbpd in April and 0.55 mbpd in May.

Putting aside its initial fears and hesitation, India turned out to be the main buyer of extra volumes of Russian oil. From almost zero in February, its imports rose to 0.9 mbpd in May; in previous years its average imports did not exceed 0.2 mbpd.

China quickly followed India’s example. Interest in additional supplies emerged not only from traditional buyers of Russian hydrocarbons among China’s independent oil refining companies (so-called teapots), but also from major Chinese players affiliated with the government, which had initially said they would not be interested in buying Russian oil due to the threat of sanctions.

However, as statistics show, after an initial decline in Russian oil exports to China in year 2022 from 1.7 mbpd in January to 1.4 mbpd in February, volumes began growing again, reaching 1.6 mbpd in April and almost 2mbpd in May.

In April and May of this year, Russian seaborn oil supplies to China reached their highest levels since March 2020, exceeding one mbpd, against an average of 0.8 mbpd in 2021. Moreover, demand for Russian oil is not limited to China and India, with Indonesia and Sri Lanka both showing an interest as well.

Several factors support the growth of Russian oil supplies to Asia. The most important one is the unprecedented discounts that Russian producers are offering their customers to compensate for the potential risks and costs of purchasing politically toxic oil. According to various estimates this discount may be as high as US$35 per barrel, which attracts profit-minded refiners that have already significantly boosted their margins and countries that are experiencing economic difficulties and cannot afford to purchase oil at the high official price.

Russia's partial loss of the petrochemical market may also benefit the oil trade: Russian oil may be in demand as a feedstock in those countries that have tried to replace Russia and increase their exports in the markets for fuel and other petrochemical products.

Thirdly, Moscow should be grateful to Tehran, which previously allowed Asian consumers to develop a number of techniques to circumvent sanctions to buy Iranian oil. These same techniques are now being used by Beijing and others to adjust their oil trade with Russia in light of the new realities.

At the same time, in terms of the oil volumes available, their quality, and in some cases their greater proximity, Russian hydrocarbons appear be more attractive for Asian consumers than Iranian ones.

Finally, Moscow is ready to pay the costs associated with the supply of oil to Asian markets and quickly learns from its mistakes. This extends not only to its willingness to provide discounts, but also to take on both the risks and costs associated with paying for ship insurance, owning its own tanker fleet, using low-tonnage carriers, as well as trading oil "from tanker to tanker." Ultimately, despite all of the associated costs, today's high oil prices allow Moscow to remain in profit.

However, there are also losers from the current market dynamics, including oil producers in the Gulf. Iran was the first to suffer. Russia challenged its position in the gray market for sanctioned oil. As already noted, Russian hydrocarbons have a number of undeniable advantages for China, including the fact that the restrictions on Russian oil are not as strict as those on Iranian oil.

It is difficult to judge Iran's losses, since there is no accurate accounting of how much of its oil bypasses sanctions. However, the Iranians’ pained reaction to the inflow of Russian oil certainly says something about how much income they have lost. Moreover, it is not just about oil but also petrochemical products. For example, Russian liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) has become a significant competitor to Iranian LPG in Turkey, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

In the Indian market, Russian oil has challenged the positions of other Gulf producers, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and especially Iraq. By May 2022, all three countries had lost a substantial volume of supplies to Moscow.

Russian oil may also present a threat to Saudi interests in the Chinese market, although so far the volume of Saudi supplies to China has been growing steadily. However, according to some experts, Oman will be the main victim of the influx of Russian Urals oil to China.

All of these factors have forced the Gulf countries to reconsider their pricing policies. Thus, in April, Iraq was the first to cut its oil prices. In May, other Gulf producers followed suit. Interestingly, Russian prices turned out to be more influential than other factors affecting the market, such as the possibility of a gradual easing of quarantine restrictions in China that in theory should have pushed oil prices upward.

The bad news for the Gulf states is that this situation is becoming the new reality. Even though the situation may have been created artificially, when some countries, for political reasons and contrary to their economic interests, voluntarily refused to purchase Russian oil, its impact is all too real, creating supply shortages in some markets and potential surpluses in others.

There have been similar precedents before, but they were more localized in nature, as in the case of Venezuela or Iran, and the conditions were slightly different.

In case of Russia, the restrictions on oil purchases are being used against one of the main players in the market, affecting a significant amount of oil when there is already an existing undersupply. Moreover, this trend is obviously long term.

The European desire to avoid dependence on Russian oil is unlikely to change. Russia will also not be able to immediately redirect all of its oil to Asia and find buyers for it, as evidenced by the growing volume of Russian oil reserves accumulating in storage and on tankers. This means that, at least in the medium term, Moscow will have certain reserves of hydrocarbons that it can use to affect the market’s balance.

Russian oil will also be a wild card as part of it is now sold secretly, under other names, thus making it difficult to track. There are already rumors about schemes Russia is using to channel its oil exports to third countries through the Gulf states, Asia, and even the EU.

The war unleashed restructuring of oil market flows and created new sources of uncertainty that will last at least until the conflict ends and relations improve. That is not likely to happen soon and the market seems to be beginning to recognize the long-term nature of the current situation.

Gulf producers are no longer silent about their problems and are obviously unhappy that political factors have created a serious imbalance in oil exports flows — a point clearly articulated by UAE Oil Minister Suhail al-Mazroui in early May.

Gradually, everyone seems to have come to the same conclusion, Sanctioned Russian oil is becoming a new reality in Asian oil markets and it must be reckoned with. Some players, like Iran, are trying to find a way to co-exist with Russia, hoping to divide the market for "gray" oil.

Others, like Saudi Arabia and its partners, can presumably expect to work with Moscow within the framework of OPEC+, although some cartel members are in favor of greater competition with Moscow for oil markets. No one has doubt that Russia will remain an important player in the oil market, at least for the foreseeable future.

OPEC likely to boost production to 650,000 bpd

The three giant oil producers, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates seem to have bow downed before United States and agreed to increase daily output to meet the shortfall resulting from ban on Russian oil export.   

If this proposal is agreed to by the OPEC Plus ministers, it will come as a relief to the White House, which has been begging OPEC—especially Saudi Arabia—for additional oil output as the United States continues to battle high gasoline prices in the run-up to mid-term elections.

According to media reports, the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has recommended an increase in production by 648,000 barrels per day (bpd) —higher than what was originally agreed.

The proposed 648,000 bpd output increase would be for July and another 648,000 bpd increase in August, all members of the JMMC were in agreement.

Under the proposal, OPEC+ would bring forward the planned September hike and spread it across July and August, resulting in 648,000 bpd increase in each of those months. There would be no planned hike, then, in September.

Until Thursday, the overarching sentiment from the masses was that OPEC’s JMMC would rubber-stamp the 423,000 bpd output increase that was already baked into the agreement.

But reports began to filter in, led by the Wall Street Journal that OPEC was considering exempting Russia from the agreement. Those reports later morphed into rumors that OPEC might agree to increase production to make up for what would surely be Russia’s lost oil production in the wake of Western sanctions, including the EU’s Russian oil import ban that was agreed to earlier in the week.

The proposal for a 648,000 bpd increase was discussed as being an overall increase for the OPEC+ group, to be divided among its members equally. In reality, there are numerous OPEC+ members that cannot meet their current quotas and are highly unlikely to meet a new, even higher quota.

Such an increase would benefit Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Iraq—all of which are thought to have excess spare oil production capacity—the ability to increase production

Developed Countries: Collection of Hypocrites

The first impression I got from the news “European Union (EU) leaders agree partial embargo on Russian oil imports” is that the developed countries are nothing but a collection hypocrites. They are supplying tons of lethal arms to Ukraine to fight their proxy war with Russia, but just can’t stop buying oil and gas from the country they term aggressor. 

On top of that they are paying Russia in its currency to keep their factories running. If they (developed countries) were sincere with the people of Ukraine, they should have stopped buying Russian energy products.

According to reports, European Union (EU) leaders on May 30, 2022 agreed to a partial ban on Russian oil imports that temporarily excludes pipeline deliveries, in a diplomatic escalation against Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine in late February this year.

"Tonight, the European Council agreed a sixth package of sanctions. Concretely, it will allow a ban on oil imports from Russia with a temporary exception for imports delivered by pipeline," European Council President Charles Michel said.

He added that 75% of Russian oil imports will be immediately affected, rising to 90% of Russian oil purchases by the end of the year.

The measure will exert "maximum pressure on Russia to end the war", and includes provisions to exclude Russia's largest bank Sberbank from the Swift international payment system and to ban three Russian broadcast providers, Michel said.

The partial oil embargo emerges after weeks of negotiations within the EU bloc and makes a critical concession to Hungary, which has previously opposed a full ban at the alleged cost to its national energy security.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on May 30, 2022 had pushed the EU coalition for further compromises.

"Leaving out the pipeline [from the embargo] is a good approach, but in the case of an accident with the pipeline through Ukraine we have to have the right to get Russian oil from other sources," Orban said.

The partial ban will further diminish Russia's dwindling export outlets. Several European buyers are already shunning Russian crude supplies as a result of self-sanctioning or the financial sanctions already in place. Russian production has already fallen by a sharp 870,000 barrels per day (bpd) from the previous month to 9.13 million bpd in April, Argus estimates.

The announcement of the EU sanctions, combined with easing Covid-19 restrictions in China, helped send Brent crude futures to a fresh two-month high above US$122/barrel in Asian trade. The front-month Ice July Brent contract rose as high as US$122.43 at 9.01:30 GMT, up by 0.8% from the close on May 30, 2022.

 

Washington obstructing Iranian nuclear deal, says Russian Foreign Minister

Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov has accused Washington of obstructing the restoration of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) by trying to introduce amendments to the nuclear agreement.

Speaking at a joint press conference with his Bahraini counterpart, Abdul Latif bin Rashid Al Zayani in Manama, Lavrov stressed Moscow will continue to work to reach an agreement on the Iranian nuclear program. 

He accused the United States of trying to obtain new gains by trying to introduce amendments to the agreement, stressing that the solution lies in returning to the implementation of the JCPOA regarding the Iranian nuclear program.

Lavrov stressed that his country will continue its plan to establish security in the Persian Gulf region, with the participation of Persian Gulf states including Iran, and to maintain peace and stability in the region.

Talks in Vienna over reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal still hang in the balance due to US stonewalling over a range of issues raised by Iran.

Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released its fresh report on the state of cooperation with Tehran. It accused Iran of not providing credible explanations on three sites in which uranium particles have been allegedly found.

“Iran has not provided explanations that are technically credible in relation to the Agency's findings at those locations,” the report said according to Reuters. It added, “The Agency remains ready to engage without delay with Iran to resolve all of these matters.”

Iranian officials said the IAEA report does not reflect the level of cooperation between Iran and the Agency. Mohammad Reza Ghaebi, the acting head of Iran's permanent representative to the Vienna-based International Organizations, said the report is one-sided and fails to reflect Iran's considerable cooperation with the IAEA.

Russia has also said that the ball is now in the US court in terms of reviving the JCPOA. 

Mikhail Ulyanov, Permanent Representative of Russia to International Organizations in Vienna, said Tuesday that it is up to the U.S. to make a decision on the Vienna talks. “The #ViennaTalks on #JCPAOA remains on pause since March 10, 2022.

According to mass media reports, Iran during the recent visit of the EU Coordinator to Tehran demonstrated certain degree of flexibility and now waits for a response from the US side. The ball is in Washington’s court,” he said on Twitter.

After a two-month lull in the talks, Iran appeared on Tuesday to be mounting new diplomatic efforts to push the talks forward. Ali Bagheri Kani, Iran’s chief negotiator, left Tehran for Oslo on Tuesday.

“Today, I departed for Oslo in continuation of recent regional and international consultations. Serious talks over bilateral, regional and international issues are on the agenda of this trip. We stress the development of relations between Iran and Norway along with our efforts to secure [our] national interests including the removal of illegal sanctions,” he said on Twitter.

The Iranian efforts come as the US keeps airing pessimism on the prospects of the talks succeeding. In his recent testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Rob Malley struck a pessimistic note on the Vienna talks. 

“As I speak to you today, we do not have a deal with Iran and prospects for reaching one are, at best, tenuous,” Rob Malley told senators. He blamed the lull in talks on Iran, saying that if Iran maintains demands that go beyond the scope of the JCPOA, there will be no deal.

Iran and the US have been negotiating in Vienna through intermediaries since April 2021. But they are yet to reach a final deal.