This is undoubtedly the reason for Friday’s fiasco: the 14-point text on which Iran and the United States agreed and which must serve as a basis for negotiations is far from equaling the JCPOA, the Vienna agreement signed in 2015. A look back at a masterpiece of multilateral diplomacy.
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/2026/06/20/6a36542abef9b803070208.jpg "War in the Middle East: why the memorandum of understanding between Iran and the United States does not compare with the Vienna agreement")
It’s an acronym that you’ve heard a lot in recent weeks: the JCPOA, for Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was signed in July 2015 in Vienna. An agreement between Iran and the so-called “P5+1” group: the five permanent members of the Security Council (United States, Russia, France, United Kingdom, China) to which was added Germany.
Twenty months of tough, prolonged negotiations, carried out down to the last comma of the smallest paragraph at the Palais Coburg, under the lenses of cameras from around the world. Its logic was clear: transparency and strict limitations of the Iranian nuclear program, in exchange for a gradual lifting of the sanctions which had been suffocating Tehran’s economy for years.
The negotiators understood that the devil was in the details. Iran undertook not to produce highly enriched uranium or plutonium for military use, to limit the number and type of centrifuges in service, and to redirect its Fordo, Natanz and Arak sites towards strictly civilian uses. Tehran also agreed to a strengthened inspection protocol, offering the IAEA expanded access, including to undeclared sites. These commitments were quickly respected. In return, American, European and UN sanctions were lifted. A welcome breath of fresh air for a breathless economy.
The break occurred in May 2018, during the first term of Donald Trump, who unilaterally decided to withdraw the United States from the agreement. The frame was then methodically emptied of its substance. Last nail in the coffin of the JCPOA, the summer of 2025: France, Germany and the United Kingdom triggered the “snapback” mechanism provided for by the text, leading to the return of all the sanctions lifted.
Any future negotiation therefore starts from scratch, without the legal net that the 2015 text still represented, a text that is at once complete, precise, multilateral, and punctuated by stages and verification mechanisms. Quite the opposite of the 14-point plan signed this week, which is more of a media stunt than diplomatic seriousness.
