Iran's Official Newspaper Outlines Tougher Nuclear Negotiating Position

Speaking in Washington before his trip to the Middle East, Austin said “This trip comes at a time when Iran is stoking tensions in undermining stability in the region.”

The US defense chief also reiterated the Biden Administration pledge not to allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. “We remain deeply committed to preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons. No problem in Middle East gets easier solved with a nuclear-armed Iran, and that's why we fully support the president's efforts to achieve a new diplomatic agreement with Iran over its nuclear program.”

But Austin warned the Islamic Republic about threats it poses in the region. “I'm going to be very clear. We will defend ourselves and our partners and our interests against threats from Iran or its proxies,” he maintained.

Multilateral nuclear talks with Iran are scheduled to resume in Vienna on November 29 after Tehran walked away from negotiations in June. Meanwhile it has been enriching more uranium to higher purity, narrowing the window to accumulating enough fissile material for a bomb.

The reports cited Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI). The visit would also come ahead of the planned resumption of talks in Vienna November 29 between Iran and world powers aimed at reviving Tehran’s 2015 nuclear agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) and as an IAEA report says Iran’s stock of uranium enriched to 60 percent has jumped nearly 80 percent in under three months.

Kamalvandi said Grossi would meet with Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and AEOI chief Mohammad Eslami.

IAEA access to Iran’s nuclear program would be crucial in monitoring a revived JCPOA, but Grossi, along with Western states, has expressed growing concern since February 2020 when Iran reduced access to little more than required under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

IAEA full access

Grossi has also criticized as inadequate explanations given by Iran over traces of uranium found at two undeclared sites and relating to work carried out before 2003.

A more pressing issue for Grossi is restoring access to Iran’s Karaj plant under terms of a temporary arrangement first made in February. While IAEA inspectors have been allowed to service monitoring equipment elsewhere, Iran has barred this at Karaj on the grounds it is carrying out a security investigation after a June attack, widely attributed to Israel.

An IAEA report this week puts Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to 60 percent at 17.7kg, up from 10kg in September. While this is less than the 25kg claimed by nuclear spokesman Behruz Kamalvandi November 4, it represents a large increase in a level of enrichment close to the 90 percent regarded as ‘weapons grade.’

Tehran has also now 113.8kg enriched to 20 percent, up from 84kg in September. A purity of only 3.67 percent is allowed under the JCPOA.

It also emerged Wednesday, in an agency report, that Grossi wrote to Iran October 25 complaining over excessively invasive physical searches by security officials at nuclear sites.

If Grossi fails to make progress next week, the European JCPOA signatories – France, Germany, and the United Kingdom – may discuss with the United States options to raise Iran’s lack of cooperation at the IAEA board. Speculation they might do so at a board meeting in September waned once Grossi extended the temporary monitoring agreement, which the IAEA chief later insisted covered Karaj as well as other sites.

Reuters quoted a senior diplomat Wednesday that the IAEA, given its lack of access, did not know if Iran has resumed manufacturing advanced centrifuges – the devices used to enrich uranium – at Karaj, as was reported Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal citing “diplomats familiar with the activities.” The advanced centrifuges enable quicker and more efficient enrichment of uranium, thereby reducing the time it would take to enrich to 90 percent ‘weapons grade.’

Karaj parts installed at Ferdow

“According to one of the diplomats familiar with Iran’s program, Iran has installed the centrifuges whose key parts were produced at Karaj at Iran’s underground, heavily fortified, Fordow site,” the Journal reported. The diplomat quoted said there was no evidence the equipment had been diverted elsewhere but “as the number of unmonitored centrifuges increases, the likelihood for this scenario increases.”

The Vienna talks have been in abeyance since June when Iran stopped its participation. While the US has continued ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions introduced by previous president Donald Trump on leaving the JCPOA in 2018, Iran has continued to expand its nuclear program – notably in enriching uranium to 60 percent, far above the 3.67 percent allowed under the JCPOA, and in using advanced centrifuges banned under the deal.

The new government in Tehran, which includes critics of the JCPOA, has adopted a more assertive tone, suggesting that while Iran would like to see US sanctions lifted, a return to the nuclear deal is a lower priority that it was under the previous administration of President Hassan Rouhani.

In a statement on Tuesday, UANI, based in the United States, said it suspected that APT35, also known as Charming Kitten, a well-known Iranian hacking group launched a series of cyberattacks, “Specifically targeting its leadership and members of its Advisory Board.”

UANI CEO Ambassador Mark D. Wallace was quoted as saying, “Those responsible managed to procure data outside of the public realm, impersonated our leadership in communications with former senior officials of the US government, and attempted to harvest Gmail credentials.”

He added that UANI took immediate action upon discovering these attacks “and has notified the relevant law enforcement authorities to request a criminal investigation.”

The group urged the authorities to investigate the incidents and for the US “to enhance its cyber security cooperation with its friends and allies. UANI further urges the Biden Administration to impose fresh economic sanctions against those responsible.”

UANI added that such attacks will not deter it “from achieving its goal of ensuring the regime fails in its pursuit of nuclear weapons, ends its support for terrorism, and stops its oppression of the Iranian people.”

Officials from Iran and the six nations that struck the pact - Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States - will meet in Vienna to see if Tehran and Washington can agree to resume compliance with the deal under which Iran curbed its nuclear program to gain relief from US, EU and UN sanctions.

In 2018 then-President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the pact among the major powers and Iran restoring harsh US sanctions, prompting Tehran to begin violating its nuclear restrictions about a year later.

"The two presidents had the chance to talk about how we can align our perspectives heading into that meeting so that the P5+1 is united in dealing with Iran and trying to pave the way for a return to the (deal)," White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in a virtual think tank appearance.

While China favors reviving the agreement, it has tended to place the onus on the United States, rather than Iran, blaming Washington for having abandoned the deal and giving Tehran an economic lifeline by buying Iranian oil despite US sanctions.

Report by Reuters

The statement on Tuesday said that Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu held a video conference with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri-Kani.

“The three sides exchanged in-depth views on the Iranian nuclear issue and reached broad consensus. China, Russia and Iran will continue to strengthen coordination and cooperation, ensure that the talks on resuming compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action are on the right track, and strive for positive results as soon as possible,” the statement said, without providing any further details.

The Vienna talks suspended by Iran in June are set to resume in less than two weeks, with Iran presenting a much tougher posture, demanding all US sanctions to be lifted at once and also guarantees that no future US administration would withdraw from an agreement.

Six rounds of talks from April to June were focused on how the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) could be restored, including which US sanctions would be lifted and the sequence of mutual steps in reviving the agreement.