Korean Diplomat In Vienna As Russia Holds The Ring In Iran Nuclear Talks

With Choi Jong-kun, South Korea’s first vice-foreign minister, due in Vienna, US State Department Spokesman Ned Price said Tuesday that progress over the Iranian assets depended on the nuclear talks, which aim to revive the 2015 Iran agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).

"Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed when it comes to these issues," Price said. "So I wouldn’t want to get ahead of where we are."

Price said that sanctions relief and the steps that the United States would take together with the nuclear steps that Iran would need to take are at the heart of the Vienna negotiations.

Price said any progress in talks last week was "modest." He reiterated that Washington’s goal was to address the “proliferation threat” of Iran’s nuclear program through “diplomacy and to test the proposition as to whether a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA remains a possibility."

Since introducing ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions and leaving the JCPOA in 2018, the US has threatened punitive action against any third party buying Iran’s oil or dealing with its financial sector. Two South Korea banks hold $7-9 billion of Iranian money, largely owed for oil imports, despite Iran’s protests. In 2021 Iran detained a Korean tanker and last year banned the import of home appliances made by the two leading Korean manufacturers.

Iran has assets frozen not just in South Korea but in Japan, Iraq, India, and China, largely for money owed for oil shipments. The semi-official Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) reported November 13 that Iran's assets frozen abroad totaled $50 billion, with $8 billion in South Korea, $3 billion in Japan, and $6 billion in Iraq.

Iranian officials have made repeated claims that funds would be released, from Iraq in March for instance, but have not subsequently confirmed transfers. Iraq owes Iran around $7 billion for gas and electricity.

Some Iraqi power stations are idle due to a fall in Iranian gas supplies. Iraqi electricity ministry spokesman Ahmed Moussa said Tuesdaythat discussions were continuing with Iran's energy ministry to pay debts with deposits in Tehran's credit fund at Trade Bank of Iraq.

Moussa said gas imports from Iran had fallen from 50 million to 8.5 million cubic meters a day, cutting 4,000 megawatts from the national grid. Iraq’s electricity production has remained low due to various problemsincluding low water levels, supplying only around a third of peak winter demand.

"Iran’s accelerating nuclear steps will increasingly diminish the non-proliferation benefits of the JCPOA" if a rapid understanding on mutual return to compliance is not reached, which Price said remains in the national interest of the US. He stressed. "Iran needs to exercise restraint in its nuclear program and pursue negotiations in Vienna seriously… our goal is to address that proliferation threat through diplomacy and to test the proposition as to whether a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA remains a possibility."

"The clock will run out" but "not on a predetermined date", the US spokesman said.

In a call with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Johnson discussed the ongoing talks on the Iran nuclear deal in Vienna.

"The prime minister said the UK wants to see the negotiations in Vienna lead to full restoration of the JCPOA, but that we need Iran to engage in good faith," a Downing Street spokesman said. "The diplomatic door is open, but time is running out to reach an agreement."

European participants in the talks, the UK, France and Germany have been warning Iran that the talks cannot drag on.

Iran interrupted the Vienna negotiations to restore the JCPOA in June for five months and returned to talks in late November. Diplomats say so far, some limited progress has been made but major issues remain to be solved.

In the meantime, Iran continues high-level uranium enrichment, deepening concerns that it might be aiming to build more leverage as it gets closer to building a nuclear bomb.

Talks continue in Vienna with different delegations holding bilateral and multilateral discussions. Iran’s chief negotiator Ali Bagheri-Kani Tuesday met with Russia’s envoy Mikhail Ulyanov, but the contents of the talks have not been disclosed.

With reporting by Reuters

According to al-Arabiya, the visiting Saudi diplomat made the remarks at a joint press conference with Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias in Athens on Tuesday.

Prince Farhan pointed out that Iran's activities don’t match with what Tehran declares about “the peaceful nature” of its nuclear program.

He reiterated Saudi Arabia’s support for international efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, as Tehran and world powers are negotiating over the revival of their nuclear agreement in Vienna.

Bin-Farhan said that he explained to his Greek counterpart "the Houthi group's threat to international navigation, the latest example of which was the hijacking of a civilian shipat sea."

The Saudi minister made similar comments after his meeting with his Jordanian counterpart Ayman al-Safadi in Amman on Monday, stressing “the importance of intensifying efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and make the Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction.”

Riyadh and Tehran held talks last year to reduce tensions with the aim of restoring diplomatic ties broken since January 2016. So far, the talks have been exploratory with no tangible results.

Diako Hosseini, a senior international relations advisor at the Center for Strategic Research under President Hassan Rouhani, said Russian negotiators had “cunningly” sidelined Enrique Mora, the senior European Union official chairing formal talks in Vienna between remaining signatories of the 2015 nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

In a Clubhouse session held by Khabar Online news website Sunday, Hosseini said that while Russia wanted the JCPOA restored, this was not based on Iran’s interests but because military confrontation between the United States and Iran, should the talks fail, would not be in Moscow’s interests.

In a commentary Tuesday in Shargh, a reformist newspaper, former diplomat Javid Ghorbanoghli accused Mikhail Ulyanov, the senior Russian negotiator in Vienna, of interfering in Iran's affairs for claiming Russia and China had convinced Iran to make concessions in the talks.

Ulyanov, who amid a general news blackout has been an active Tweeter, last week entered the debate as to whether current talks – which include formal and informal sessions within the JCPOA structure, and indirect contact with the US, which left the JCPOA in 2018 – are based more on drafts developed by June or on written proposals Iran submitted on November 29.

Speaking to Entekhab news website, Shahriyar Heydari, a member of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, also criticized Ulyanov, demanding an explanation from Ali Bagheri-Kani, Iran's top negotiator. "As far as we know, our negotiation team insists on the country's demands and has not changed its stances."

While Iran has since talks began back in April insisted that formal meetings remain within JCPOA structures and be committed to restoring the 2015 agreement, some in Tehran have argued for direct contacts with the US, as occurred for two years leading up to the JCPOA being signed in 2015.

Ulyanov and representatives of the western European JCPOA signatories – France, German and, the United Kingdom – all meet US officials. The Russian envoy has Tweeted photos of his meetings with White House officialRobert Malley, who leads Washington’s team in Vienna.

"The public's reading of this photo [of Ulyanov and Malley] … naturally implies a paternalistic Russian role in the Vienna talks," Ghorbanoghli said. "Moscow is (and was) concerned that the nuclear deal could be the starting point for improvement in Iran and US relations," Ghorbanoghli wrote, adding that in his view both Russia and Israel preferred Tehran-Washington antagonism to continue as it restricted Iran's options.

In an interview leaked in April, Mohammad Javad Zarif, then foreign minister and an architect of the JCPOA, criticized Russia’s role over the agreement and pointed to the absence of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in the group photo taken after the deal was signed.

Zarif, who was sanctioned by the US in 2019, said he resorted to "rude and non-diplomatic language" with Lavrov on some occasions.In August, conservative former lawmaker Ali Motahari said Russia was trying to sabotage the Vienna talks to prevent Iranian rapprochement with “the West.”

The second leg of the eighth round of the negotiations started Monday as the participating parties have returned to the Austrian capital after the New Year holidays and consultations with their respective capitals.

According to the negotiating teams, the sides were also engaged in unofficial talks and exchanging messages during the three-day recess, IRNA said.

During the Monday meetings, the participating teams continued discussions on the possible roadmap for revival of the July 2015 nuclear deal, also known as the JCPOA.

Earlier in the day, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said that Western negotiators have backed off from their "maximalist demands”.

The emphasis on the Western side's "retreat" is apparently a reaction to the Iranian media's criticism of the negotiating team after the Russian envoy to the talks, Mikhail Ulyanov, said that Russia and China had convinced Iran to back off from some of its "maximalist demands" in the last round of talks.

Nour News which is affiliated with the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), Ali Shamkhani, Sunday admitted that Iran had dropped some of its previous demands but accused the media of misinterpreting the facts.