Iran Open To Direct Talks With US If A 'Good Deal Is At Hand'

State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Monday that the US is prepared to meet with Iranian officials directly in bilateral as well as multilateral formats.

He reiterated Washington’s position a day after Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Tehran would consider direct talksif a good deal is in sight.

“Meeting directly would enable more efficient communication, which is urgently needed to swiftly reach an understanding on a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA”, he said during a press briefing.

Price said the US seeks to hold direct talks urgently because the nonproliferation benefits of the JCPOA as initially drafted and implemented are getting outweighed by the pace of Iran’s nuclear advancements.

In response to a question about when such direct talks would happen, Price said the authorities in Tehran should answer the question because “the Iranians have insisted on the indirect format in Vienna. We have long noted the fact that indirect talks, especially on an issue of this complexity and of this importance, is a hindrance”.

About Special Envoy Robert Malley’s comments about the issue of Iran releasing American hostages, Price said that these issues “are operating on separate tracks” because it would serve anybody's interests “to tie their fates to a mutual return to JCPOA compliance that is “uncertain at best”.

“If during the negotiation process we reach a point that achieving a good agreement with solid guarantees requires a level of talks with the US, we will not ignore that in our work schedule,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in Tehran on the side-lines of the First National Conference of Iran and Neighbors.

Iran has so far kept direct talks in Vienna, which began in April, to the structures set up under the 2015 agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), which the US left in 2018. That is negotiations with four members of the UN Security Council and Germany which have remained in the deal.

Amir-Abdollahian said that “indirect talks with the United States have so far been mediated by European Union envoy Enrique Mora − who is the coordinator for negotiations − as well as one or two other countries participating in Vienna talks…The American side has so far presented its proposals on technical issues to Iran through the same channels.”

The talks have covered ‘technical’ issues both in Iran’s nuclear program, expanded since 2019 beyond JCPOA limits and the intricacies of US sanction. But Amir-Abdollahian suggested talks were now reaching a point where “we have to make a political decision.”

Washington’s Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley, who heads the US negotiating team in Vienna, told Reuters Sunday that the US would welcome direct talks with Tehran, stressing that his side had “heard nothing to that effect” so far.

While Iran held direct talks with the US over Afghanistan and Iraq, and later in the run-up to the signing of the JCPOA in 2015, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in 2018 ruled out direct talks until the US returned to the JCPOA.

Amir-Abdollahian rejected speculation over secret talks, although noting that Washington sent messages every now and then “in various ways” to call for direct contacts.

Some Iranian politicians, mostly critics of President Ebrahim Raisi, have argued that the Vienna talks have not been constructive and that direct talks involving the US are needed. Outspoken politician Ali Motahari, deputy-speaker in the previous parliament, has described an unwillingness to directly engage with the US as an “obvious mistake” and a “revolutionary gesture…against the national interest”.

Good-will gestures

The JCPOA followed two years of talks between the US and Iran, beginning with a ‘back channel’ established though Oman, and culminating in face-to-face bilateral meetings between Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was in 2019 sanctioned by President Donald Trump after he withdrew the US from the JCPOA.

In the Vienna talks, a US deputation led by Malley participates indirectly, liaising through Mora and the remaining JCPOA signatories – China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United Kingdom.

There has been talk in recent weeks of good-will gestures between Iran and the US, including the suggestion that the US might waive the threat of punitive action against third parties holding money owed to Iran, so allowing Iran to begin repatriating billions of dollars owed largely for oil sales.

South Korea said Sunday it had used ‘frozen’ Iranian funds to pay Iran’s $18 million dues at the United Nations, a step apparently approved by Washington, to restore Tehran’s suspended voting rights at the world body. The Iranian Student News Agency reported November that Iran had $8 billion in South Korea, $ 3billion in Japan, and $6billion in Iraq – monies frozen by banks fearful of the US third-party sanctions in place since 2018.

"I emphasize again that these two issues are separate, but if there is a will on the other side, we can reach agreements on both [groups of prisoners] in the shortest time possible," Saeed Khatibzadeh the foreign ministry spokesman said.

Khatibzadeh, in his Monday briefing for reporters linked the foreigners and dual citizens detained in Iran to Iranians jailed in the United States for violating US sanctions.

The spokesman this could be done if the “US abides by the agreements that it made before.” The spokesman apparently referred to the jailing of Iranians over violating sanctions, including those introduced by presidential order under the ‘maximum pressure’ on Iran begun in 2018, when the US left the 2015 nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) and introduced sanctions incompatible with it.

Khatibzadeh alleged that Iranian citizens in the US were held “in inhumane conditions” on “the false accusation of circumventing [US] sanctions,” whereas US citizens held in Iran had committed crimes and had been lawfully sentenced.

The US and other Western citizens and dual nationals in question have in general been convicted by Revolutionary Courts on security charges after trials that human rights organizations have said do not meet international standards of due process.

Khatibzadeh said Iran had often expressed concerns on humanitarian grounds over Iranians held in the US, and insisted their plight had been Iran's agenda "both directly and indirectly, both before and these [nuclear] talks, and even during them.”

Malley and ‘preconditions’

In an interview with Reuters published Monday, the US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley stressed the importance of the release of four American-Iranians held in Iran but stopped short of saying their freedom was a precondition for Washington re-entering the JCPOA.

"They're separate [agreement in Vienna and the prisoners’ release] and we're pursuing both of them,” Malley said. “But I will say it is very hard for us to imagine getting back into the nuclear deal while four innocent Americans are being held hostage by Iran.”

His remarks were interpreted both by Reuters and media in Iran as a US “pre-condition” for agreement in Vienna, although Malley’s words appeared less a diplomatic demarche than an effort to convince former US hostage Barry Rosen to end a hunger strike in Vienna aimed at making the prisoners’ release a US precondition, which was attracting media attention.

"So even as we're conducting talks with Iran indirectly on the nuclear file we are conducting, again indirectly, discussions with them to ensure the release of our hostages," Malley told Reuters.

Iranian media took up Reuters’ suggestion that Malley had "moved a step close… to saying that their release was a precondition for a nuclear agreement."

Obstruction

The official news agency IRNA detected "Washington's new obstruction in the course of Vienna talks” with the US apparently seeking “to make the path to reaching a deal in Vienna hard, under various pretexts.” Fars news agency reported Malley's remarks under the headline "Washington Sets Precondition for Returning to JCPOA.”

Rosen, a US diplomat held in the Tehran embassy in 1979-81, was on hunger strike in Vienna last week to demand that no agreement be reached over the Iranian nuclear program until US, British, French, German, Austrian and Swedish prisoners in Iran were released. He was joined by British-Iranian Anoosheh Ashoori, held in Tehran’s Ervin prison.

"I've spoken to a number of the families of the hostages who are extraordinarily grateful for what Mr Rosen is doing but they also are imploring him to stop his hunger strike, as I am, because the message has been sent," Malley said.

Speculations about a possible US attempt to have Russia convince Iran to accept an interim agreement began three days ago when NBC News reported that Moscow, with the knowledge of the United States has proposed to Tehran a partial deal to accept curbs on its nuclear activities for limited sanctions relief.

The Vienna nuclear talks to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA, that started almost ten months ago have not succeeded and critics see an interim deal as a way for the Biden Administration to salvage its policy of negotiating with Iran to revive the Obama-era agreement. Former president Donald Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, arguing that it will not prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power once its provisions expire in the coming years.

Speculations increased when on January 21 US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the media that American-Russian cooperation in the nuclear talks was an example of how Moscow and Washington can work together on security issues. He said that in a meeting with the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov he urged Moscow to use its influence with Iran to impress upon Tehran a sense of urgency to reach an agreement in Vienna.

This was seen by some observers commenting on Twitter and others in the Iranian media as a linkage with the Ukraine crisis and a sign that Russia was becoming the real mover and coordinator in the Iran nuclear talks.

“Some people in the West and Iran claim that there is a link between Iran and Ukraine in the Russian foreign policy. It has nothing in common with real life,” Ulyanov tweeted on Monday.

A day earlier, Blinken told CBS's Face the Nation that the Iran talks have no bearing on US positions regarding Russian threats to Ukraine.

However, some Republicans in Congress saw the reports about Russia proposing an interim deal and Blinken’s statement as a sign that a secret deal is being shaped with Russia on Iran and the Biden Administration is keeping lawmakers in the dark.

"Russia sent a secret agreement to Iran," Rep. Michael McCaul (R., Texas), lead Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Washington Free Beacon on Friday. "Russia is trying to take the lead now in the negotiations with Iran. This is a secret agreement. We haven’t seen it."

Congressional Republicans have been complaining that the Biden Administration is ignoring their requests for information on the Iran talks. More than 100 Republican wrote President Joe Biden earlier this month to end the negotiations, which have not succeeded but have provided time to Iran to advance its nuclear program.

"Reports that the Biden administration is working with the Russians on a secret nuclear agreement with Iran are doubly concerning," Rep. Mike Gallagher (R., Wis.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee told the Free Beacon.

"First, they create a conflict of interest with Russia as we are trying to prevent an invasion of Ukraine. Second, preemptive sanctions relief, and failure to transmit an interim agreement to Congress, would violate the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act. The administration needs to end their simultaneous surrender to Russia and Iran before it's too late," Rep. Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.), chair of the House Republican Conference was quoted as saying.

Jalali said that Russia has not put forward the idea of accepting an interim agreement during President Ebrahim Raisi's visit to Moscow last week. He added that reports about such a suggestion were lies, and therefore wrong.

He accused the media of knowing nothing about the content of the talks between the two presidents.

Reports have suggested that Russia has suggested to Iran to accept an interim agreement that would freeze its nuclear activities in return for partial sanctions relief by the United States.

According to the semi-official news agency ISNA, Jalali added that both Russia and Iran disagree with American unilateralism, and this is what has brought Iran closer to Russia. He said Iran has resisted the West's unilateralism during the past 43 years and has paid a high price for that.

At the same time, the spokesman for the Iranian parliament's national Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Mahmoud Abbaszadeh Meshkini said in an interview with Khabar Online website in Tehran on Sunday, that a nuclear agreement in Vienna is within reach and Iran and the United States will reach a deal before the Iranian New Year which starts on March 20.

Meshkini said "Iran has some golden cards to put on the table in Vienna," insisting that Iran has defeated the US sanctions and has solid ties with Russia and China. He added: "Although the United States wishes to impose a bad agreement on us, we believe a win-win nuclear agreement is within reach in Vienna."

Meshkini added that Iran's situation in the negotiations is "very good," adding that "Iran is in control of the negotiations and has the upper hand in the talks and its negotiators enjoy strong backing."

"The United States should accept the Islamic Republic as a reality and should know that Iran will not accept a bad agreement, "Meshkini said, adding that "an agreement will be made before March 20 although it is not important when we are going to reach that agreement. What is significant is that we reach a good agreement. " Meanwhile he reassured Khabar Online that "We have good initiatives and will manage the negotiations."

He argued that following the December 2020 legislation that called for boosting uranium enrichment and reducing Iran's commitments under the 2015 nuclear agreement, Iran regained freedom of action over stockpiling enriched uranium and the type and number of centrifuges. In the meantime, the coming to power of a new hardliner "revolutionary" government in Tehran as well as Tehran's alliance with the East, offered some golden cards to Iran to put on the negotiating table.

Meshkini continued with a certain optimism that: "The sanctions were the West's most powerful and dangerous tool. But we circumvented them by forging an alliance with the East. Iran, Russia and China are the three pillars of the Eastern bloc which is becoming more and more powerful on a daily basis." He added that Iran's agreement with China includes more than $500 billion in Chinese investments in Iran's strategic industries.

Iran's ambassador in Moscow had also said in his interview that the West is annoyed by the alliance between Iran, Russia and China, calling Iran "an influential regional power."