Iranians Continue Criticizing Russia For ‘Obstructing’ Nuclear Talks

Iranian Road Minister Rostam Ghasemi and Azerbaijan’s First Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev signed the agreement during a meeting with President Ilham Aliyev in attendance in capital Baku on Friday.

The 55-kilometer highway will bypass the territory of Armenia, which is located between Nakhchivan and Azerbaijani region of Kalbajar-Lachin, now named Eastern Zangezur.

The region was in Nagorno-Karabakh that came under the control of Azerbaijan after Yerevan and Baku fought a war over the disputed region in 2020.

This highway will also connect to the International North–South Transport Corridor that is a multi-mode network of ship, rail, and road route for moving freight across India, Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia.

In January, Iran and Azerbaijan signed another dealto construct a bridge on Astarachay River running along the joint border as part of their plans to increase road transit between the two countries.

In a message to President Ebrahim Raisi on the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Iran Saturday, Aliyev said, “Over the years, numerous reciprocal trips, signed documents and agreements, as well as joint projects have played an important role in the development of our dynamic cooperation in political, economic, transport, energy, cultural and other fields”.

Negotiators have reached the final stages to restore the so-called JCPOA deal, which lifted sanctions on Iran in return for curbs on its nuclear program, long seen by the West as a cover for developing atomic bombs.

However, on March 5 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov unexpectedly demanded sweeping guarantees that Russian trade with Iran would not be affected by sanctions imposed on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

"Nobody should seek to exploit JCPOA negotiations to obtain assurances that are separate to the JCPOA," France, Britain and Germany - the so-called E3 European parties to the 2015 accord - said in a joint statement. "This risks the collapse of the deal," they said.

The deal on the table should be concluded with the utmost urgency, they added.

Washington has already insisted it will not agree to Russia's demands.

The 11-month-old international talks seek to bring Iran back into compliance with the deal's restrictions on its rapidly advancing nuclear activities and bring the United States back into the accord it left in 2018 under former President Donald Trump.

Oil markets are closely watching the progress of talks to see whether restrictions on Iranian crude exports might be lifted, which could help to offset disruption to supplies from Russia's war in Ukraine.

Report by Reuters

So far Iranian officials have refrained from openly acknowledging that the pause in the talks announced by EU on Friday has anything to do with Moscow's demand to receive exemption from Western sanctions on Ukraine in relation to its ties with Iran. They have continued to blame the US for not reaching an agreement which last week appeared to be very close at hand.

In an interview with pro-Iran Al-Mayadeen television Friday, the media advisor of the Iranian negotiation team, Mohammad Marandi, said no definite date has been set for a return to the talks. Marandi avoided saying whether Iran backs Moscow's demands and accused the US and European powers of not being prepared to lift the sanctions on Iran.

"Moscow wants guarantees from the US and other Western countries, not Iran," he said.

But some hardliner media and a website affiliated to the Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani on Saturday offered hints of Tehran's frustration with Moscow seeking a loophole through which it can escape sanctions pressure.

An unattributed commentary in Javan newspaper which is linked to the Revolutionary Guards on Saturday said, "nobody is officially saying what differences caused the halt in the talks" but added that "one can presume that the biggest challenges now are caused by Russia and the US unlike the previous times when they were posed by Iran."

Javan commentary reiterated that the inflexibility of the United States poses the biggest challenge to a deal but said the "Russia's demand for guarantees for future trade and military relations with Iran after a possible deal, a position which Iran does not strongly oppose, forms part of the differences."

Nour News website which is believed to be Ali Shamkhani's mouthpiece in another unattributed commentary Saturday entitled "America's Sleight With Tools Exceeding Negotiations" also pointed the finger at the US for stalling the talks by refusing to accept Iran's demands and acknowledged Moscow's demand as "a new issue and unpredicted factor" in the talks, but said Iran "backs Moscow's approach".

Unlike Javan, the Nour News commentary claimed in clear terms that Tehran "backs Moscow's approach" and argued that saying negotiations have ended and a final text has been prepared, as European negotiators say, was "a wrong surmise".

Nour News accused the Western parties in the talks of emphasizing and attributing the difficulties in the talks to Russia's new demand for guarantees, to avoid accepting Iran's own demands.

"Although the Russian request can introduce a new agenda to the negotiation table as a new issue and an unpredicted factor, the main hitch in the talks which results from a lack of political decision by the US to respond to Iran's demands has remained unresolved. Therefore, one can't speak about Russia's request as an obstacle that prevents an agreement," Nour News said.

In Tehran some reformist media which accuse Moscow of taking the Iran deal hostage to their own interests have even accused Moscow of throwing an obstacle in the path of an agreement in coordination with Tehran's archenemy, Israel.

"The war [in Ukraine] showed that there is a marked synchronization between Israel and the Kremlin in all dimensions and this cooperation even includes Israel's concerns over a nuclear agreement with Iran in Vienna," a commentary in reformist Etemad newspaper said Saturday and asked if there could be a connection between the Israeli Prime Minster Naphtali Bennet's recent visit to Moscow and the abrupt pause in the talks.

The document was signed by the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, and his Uzbek counterpart Viktor Makhmudov in the capital Tashkent on Wednesday.

According to the agreement, a Joint Security Commission will be established and held annually to follow up on the bilateral cooperation.

Shamkhani said Uzbekistan has a very important geopolitical position in the heart of Central Asia, noting, "Issues such as preventing the spread of terrorism and extremism in the region are among the common security concerns of the two countries”.

He added that “the common borders of Iran and Uzbekistan with Afghanistan require increased cooperation to resolve problems and establish peace and stability in this country".

During his visit to Uzbekistan, Shamkhani also held a meeting with President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, where the two stressed the necessity for communication between the security institutions of the two countries and called for increasing the level of trade and economic ties.

Shamkhani also appreciated Uzbekistan’s support for Iran's membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and expressed hope that this support would continue until the Islamic Republic’s membership is finalized.

After 11 months of multilateral talks in Vienna diplomats have been insisting that a deal was at hand to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement known as JCPOA, before Russia made last-minute demands on Saturday.

Moscow has asked for exemption from Ukraine sanctions in its economic and other relations with Iran. The US and its European allies have dismissed Russia's demand, saying sanctions imposed over the Ukraine invasion are not related to the Iran nuclear deal.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price also told reporters the United States continues to believe that a potential deal to return to the Iran nuclear agreement is close, but said decisions need to made in places like Tehran and Moscow.

Iran has been downplaying the Russian demand, claiming that Washington has not made its final decisions over the nuclear deal and has presented new demands.