Israel Says Getting Ready For The Day After Iran Agreement
Israeli PM Bennett (R) and defense minister Gantz in 2021
Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz has warned that even if a nuclear deal is signed, Iran must be stopped from being a nuclear threshold state.
Gantz said on Sunday that “All steps must be taken to ensure that Iran never becomes a nuclear-threshold state. The world must never come to terms with it and Israel will never come to terms with it.”
He also issued a warning to Tehran’s top proxy, the Lebanese Hezbollah, saying Israel will retaliate against any provocative moves.
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Israel will maintain its citizens’ security, while “organizing and preparing for the day after, in all ways, so that we can maintain the security of the citizens of Israel on our own”, adding that the Islamic Republic “will use financial gain from the deal to fund regional terror”.
He described the new deal as “shorter and weaker” than the previous agreement, which would allow Tehran to build “stadiums of advanced centrifuges without restrictions” once the deal lapses in two and a half years if it is signed without an extension of the original JCPOA expiration date.
“Two things have happened since the original signing — the Iranians have made great strides in building their enrichment capabilities, and time has passed”, he said, adding, “This terrorism endangers us, endangers other countries in the region, and as we have seen recently, will also endanger American forces in the region”.
A large majority in Iran's parliament issued a statement urging President Ebrahim Raisi not to agree to any new nuclear deal without ensuring Iran's demands.
In the Sunday statement signed by 250 lawmakers, out of 290, stressed that getting credible guarantees is a red line to ensure the interests of the Iranian people is protected. Hardliners loyal to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei dominate the Iranian parliament since 2020, after elections in which most rivals were banned from contesting.
Iran has been insisting to obtain a political guarantee from the United States that it would not renege on a new nuclear agreement. Former president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018, reimposing crippling sanctions on Tehran.
However, the Biden Administration cannot guarantee that a future president or Congress will not reimpose sanctions.
Lawmakers said the negotiations to revive the 2015 deal have reached a critical point, calling on the president not to compromise on any of the demands reiterated by the Islamic Republic. These include not only a political guarantee, but also the removal of all sanctions imposed on Iran, whether for nuclear or other reasons, such as human rights violations or terrorism. The text explicitly mentions guarantees by France, Germany and the United Kingdom, the three European signatories of JCPOA, to remove all sanctions.
The statement said the US and the three European signatories of the nuclear deal have shown in the past eight years that they are not committed to any agreement and used all the possible means against the interests of the Iranian people, adding that they also put sanctions on medicines – a highly questionable claim.
The lawmakers also asked Raisi to get credible will not use JCPOA’s trigger mechanism designed to reimpose international sanctions in case Iran violates the nuclear agreement.
According to the statement, the US and the three European countries must lift all the sanctions related to nuclear, terrorism, missiles, and human rights issues, including the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), CAATSA U-turn, and the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA).
The US and JCPOA signatories must fulfill their obligations about sanctions in a manner verifiable for Iran, they said, noting that the administration should brief the parliament on the removal of oil and banking sanctions, then the parliament would approve reducing the nuclear activities.
Although the parliament’s move could be a negotiating ploy by Tehran, but it indicates a final deal in Vienna can be harder than what Western sources have indicated.
Iran's president and foreign minister have reiterated that for an agreement in nuclear talks Washington must remove all sanctions and guarantee the deal.
In a phone conversation with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron on Saturday, the Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi reiterated that any deal for the restoration of the deal, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), must include the lifting of sanctions, convincing guarantees that Washington will not renege on the deal in the future as former US President Donald Trump did in 2018, and "an end to political issues and claims".
In his hour and half-long phone talk with Macron, Raisi also said Iran is under certain "political pressures or claims aimed at maintaining the leverage of pressure" that "undermine the prospect of reaching an agreement in Vienna".
It is not clear what pressures Raisi was referring to, but Iran has made advances in its nuclear program that must be addressed by any agreement if JCPOA is to be restored. One issue is advanced uranium enrichment machines it has deployed since 2020 and the stockpile of highly enriched uranium these centrifuges have produced. Beyond nuclear issues, the US is demanding the release of American and possibly other Western citizens held in Iran on trumped-up charges, Iran’s ballistic missiles and its aggressive regional policies.
"President Macron stressed the need to conclude an agreement while there was still time for this. He also expressed his conviction that the discussions, which are being conducted with the active participation of France and its partners, make it possible to arrive at a solution that takes into account the fundamental interests of all parties,” the Elysee Palace said in a short communiqué according to France 24. “This would help avoid a major nuclear crisis,” the statement said.
“What we are considering seems absolutely reasonable and fair: the removal of all sanctions inconsistent with the JCPOA, verification of sanctions removal, and presentation of absolutely necessary objective guarantees for the fulfilment of commitments,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in an address at the Munich Security Conference Saturday evening and added that Western powers will be responsible if the nuclear talks in Vienna fail because Tehran wants "a good deal".
Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Thursday accused Western powers of seeking to deprive Iranians of peaceful nuclear energy and reiterated that Iran has never sought nuclear weapons but gave no indication in his speech as to whether he thought a revived deal, restoring limits on Tehran’s nuclear program, was likely.
‘Tangible good will’
Amir-Abdollahian also reiterated that Tehran wants the US to show “tangible steps of goodwill," in a possible reference to freeing Iran's blocked funds abroad.
When asked about prospects of direct negotiations between Tehran and Washington at a panel at the Munich Security Conference Saturday, the Iranian foreign minister did not rule out the possibility but said Washington should show tangible goodwill gestures including the release of Iran's assets frozen in other countries under the US sanctions before even considering to directly negotiate with the US in Vienna.
European powers have in the past few days warned that time for reaching an agreement with Tehran was quickly drawing to an end, but Tehran continues to blame the other parties and says the deadlines set by them are "fake".
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said Saturday that Tehran has already made its "serious decisions" and demonstrated its seriousness all along during the talks. "To reach the final agreement, it is now up to the E3 and the US to do the same, urgently," he tweeted.
Amir-Abdollahian on Saturday also said Tehran is ready for an "immediate" prisoner swap with the US. “We believe prisoner swap is a humanitarian issue ... unrelated to the nuclear accord. We can do it immediately,” he told the panel at the Munich Security Conference.
Tehran has refuted a Reuters report Friday that claimed a prisoner swap was part of the talks.
Tehran is holding at least four Iranian-American nationals as well as several with citizenship of European countries including France, Britain, Germany, and Sweden who were arrested by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and sentenced by Revolutionary Courts to prison terms.
The US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley said on January 24 that a nuclear agreement with Tehran was unlikely without the release of Americans detained in Iran.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has told his French counterpart that any agreement between Tehran and world powers must involve removal of all sanctions and provision for credible guarantees.
During a phone conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday, Raisi discussed the latest developments of the ongoing talks in Vienna to revive the 2015 Iran deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Raisi insisted on Iran’s demands that any deal in Vienna should be the cessation to all political issues and claims and should include the lifting of all maximum pressure sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic since 2018, when former president Donald Trump withdrew from the deal.
He added that certain "political pressures or claims have been made with the aim of maintaining the leverage of pressure on the Iranian nation which undermine the prospect of reaching an agreement."
‘Maximum pressure’ refers to around 1,500 sanctions, a majority of which are designation of Iranian officials, individuals and companies for reasons other than the nuclear program.
Sanctions were imposedfor human rights violations, support for terror groups, violation of banking and export laws, money laundering and similar offences.
Raisi noted that Iran’s negotiating team in Vienna has put forth constructive proposals and has studied offers by the other sides to see if they are in line with the interests of the Iranian people.
A European diplomat told Iran International Saturday that agreement on restoring the 2015 Iran nuclear deal would be announced next week, with almost all issues now resolved.
Others were not so sure. Chancellor Olaf Scholz told the 58th Munich Security Conference(MSC) in southern Germany on Saturday that while all elements for concluding negotiations “are on the table…it’s the case that if we don’t succeed very quickly in this, the negotiations threaten to fail.”
Scholz said talks were at “the moment of truth” and that “the Iranian leadership now has a choice.”
In Tehran, the official news agency IRNA reported foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian that further clarifications were needed before any agreement in Vienna on the reviving the 2015 agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).
Scholz told participants at the annual security conference that the Vienna talks had come a long way over ten months. He criticized Tehran for increasing the level to which it enriches uranium and for restricting access of United Nations inspectors.
Iran began extending its nuclear program in 2019, a year after United States President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the JCPOA. Last year Tehran reached enrichment of 60 percent, far above the JCPOA cap of 3.67 percent. It also last year reduced UN inspectors’ access to that required under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty.
The Iranian foreign minister has said continuing talks are needed to clarify international commitments in restoring the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
In remarks quoted by the official news agency IRNA, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres Saturday that talks were needed “with different countries to be prepared for…implementing the agreements reached under the 2015 deal.”
The meeting, on the side-lines of the 58th Munich Security Conference (MSC) in southern Germany, came with growing speculation that broad agreement had been reached in Vienna in Iran’s talks with world powers over reviving the 2015 agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).
A report this week from the Reuters news agency, which hinted at interim arrangements, was dismissed in Tehran. Tasnim news agency, which is linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, noted Saturday that often-anonymous quotes from “western diplomats” in Vienna were speculative or designed to mislead.
"Progress is significant in the negotiation process, but the other side still has to secure Iran's legitimate rights and interests in some key issues," Amir-Abdollahian said. Further talks, he continued, should cover “international cooperation” and Tehran’s foreign policy.
The remarks as reported in IRNA did not clarify whether Amir-Abdollahian was talking about the nitty-gritty of restoring the JCPOA, referencing Iran’s search for European guarantees of open trade with Iran once the JCPOA is restored, or suggesting possible ‘follow-on’ talks as demanded by the United States.
The Reuters report, which the agency said was based on a draft agreement, said a sequence of steps in restoring the JCPOA would begin with a phase in which Iran suspended uranium enrichment above 5 percent and the United States lifted its threat to sanction South Korean banks over repatriating $7 billion Iranian assets. In this phase, Reuters said, the US would not lift ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions on Iran’s oil exports. The report also suggested a prisoner swap between Washington and Tehran could be included.
The IRNA report suggested agreement on restoring the JCPOA was not to be assumed. It quoted Amir-Abdollahian, in meeting German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, that she should “carefully consider Iran’s red lines…[and] play an effective role in securing the legitimate rights of Iran as a party that was affected by the United States’ unilateral and illegal withdrawal” from the JCPOA.
Amir-Abdollahian further underlined the need for no-one to make a miscalculation in the Vienna discussions by creating media hype. “Tehran is taking heed of both the quality of an agreement and the element of time,” he said. “If Iran’s legitimate demands are taken into account today, an agreement can be reached in Vienna.”
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told the Munich Security Conference Saturday that time for reviving the JCPOA was running out. "We now have the chance to reach an agreement that will allow sanctions to be lifted,” he said. “But if we do not succeed very quickly, the negotiations risk failing. The Iranian leadership has a choice. Now is the moment of truth."
