Russia Supports Iran Nuclear Deal But 'No Close Ties With The West'
Political commentator Diako Hosseini in Tehran says Russia supports the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal but wants tensions to continue between Iran and the West.
Political commentator Diako Hosseini in Tehran says Russia supports the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal but wants tensions to continue between Iran and the West.
Speaking to Rouydad24 website, Hosseini said that when Russians look at the bigger picture, they see Iran as part of their geopolitical map. Just like the Americans, Russians too have shown that they do not wish to see Iran becoming a nuclear power. They are sensitive to this matter and will always obstruct Iran's path to nuclear bombs. But at the same time, a nuclear agreement should not mean Iran getting too close to the West.
While Moscow was playing an active mediation role between Tehran and Washington during the Vienna talks in recent months, after the invasion of Ukraine it made demands that were seen as a stumbling block to an agreement. Russia asked for written guarantees from the US that Western sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine would not affect its ties with Iran.
Hosseini said, it is natural that the Russians follow their own interests in the talks. With the Ukraine war, their interests have become even more complicated. "Russians know that if the nuclear deal is not revived, tensions between Tehran and the West will increase to the point of a war. If there is such a war, it will be difficult for Moscow to support any side or even to declare impartiality."
For the time being, Russia's interests overlap with Iran's interests but in case there is an agreement, Russia will be worried that Iran might get too close to the West. The best-case scenario for Russia is continued tensions between Iran and the West, Hosseini argued.
According to the website, the Vienna talks have reached a difficult point where there is little chance for progress. The website quoted Hosseini as defending Tehran’s position that all post-2018 sanctions are about the nuclear issue. If the 2015 nuclear agreement, JCPOA, is to be revived, all sanctions including those against the IRGC need to be lifted.
He added that some recent remarks by Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian indicate that Iran might compromise over the IRGC issue. He was referring to Amir-Abdollahian’s statement last week that IRGC commanders told him to prioritize Iran's interests over the interests of the Revolutionary Guard.
Meanwhile, in an interview with Fararu website, former lawmaker Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh said that both Iran and the United States need an agreement to prevent rising tensions in the region andthe world.
He said an agreement is at hand and its final draft has been prepared but matters beyond the nuclear agreement prevent a final deal to be made. Last week Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's adviser Kamal Kharrazi once again called for guarantees from America, lifting of all sanctions, and delisting the IRGC as requirements for a deal. This comes while several Iranian lawmakers including Ali Khezri claim they have seen a 27-page final draft of an agreement between Iran and the United States.
Falahatpishe, the former chairman of Iranian parliaments national security and foreign policy Committee said it is not known if Russia still insists on its own demands about the nuclear deal.
Nonetheless, he said that only delisting the IRGC can lead to a détente between Iran and the West. Falahatpisheh maintained that both countries should try to reduce tensions in the region as any delay will give an opportunity to “agitators such as Israel” and some “regional reactionaries” to bring about chaos in the region.
Dan Shapiro, who served as US ambassador to Israel during the Obama administration and is a specialist on US Middle East policy, has left the Iran team led by Special Envoy Rob Malley after just seven months, Haaretz reported on Tuesday.
This follows the departure of sanctions expert Richard Nephew in December and two other members of Malley’s team. Although Shapiro has not expressed any misgivings about the way the nuclear talks have been handled in Vienna, Nephew in February disclosed in a series of tweets that he stepped down from his post “due to a sincere difference of opinion concerning policy.”
On Monday, Senator Chris Coons, a close supporter of President Joe Biden told Iran International he was apprehensive over the possibility that the US might remove Iran’s Revolutionary Guard from its list of Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). He also expressed deep misgivings about Iran’s regime, saying that its behavior on several fronts has become worse in the last two years.
Senior Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told Jewish insider on Monday that an Israeli strike on Iran appeared to be the most likely way to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. He ruled out that the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei would have a “change of heart” and using sanctions, although to an extent effective, could not guarantee the same outcome.
“If you don’t [understand] that, you’re making a huge mistake,” Graham told Jewish Insider. “This is never going to end short of a nuclear weapon unless somebody stops them.”
The Senator explained that he is putting together legislation that would require a close watch on Iran’s nuclear activities and a report to US Congress every 120 days about any “weaponization efforts, missile technology, proliferation and violations of International Atomic Energy Agency inspection regime.”
Graham maintained that if any Iranian deviation toward weaponization is observed, the White House would be required to come up with a plan to stop it.
Despite the recent ‘Negev Summit’ where Secretary of State Antony Blinken tried to show a mood of unity with Israel and Arab states that have normalized ties with Israel, deep concerns regarding the Biden Administration’s Middle East policies persist.
In an opinion piece published by the Jerusalem Post on Tuesday, Mohammed Alyahya, a Saudi researcher with the Hudson Institute argued that there is a serious “crisis” between Washington and Riyadh, smacking of a “divorce”.
Alyahya argued that since former president Barack Obama agreed to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA, it became clear to Saudis that the US was abandoning its 70-year policy of protecting allies in the region. He agreed to a flawed deal in exchange for releasing billions of dollars to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards who arm militants around the region.
President Biden’s pursuit of renewing the JCPOA, which Donald Trump abandoned in 2018, is a continuation of the same Obama policy – or worse, Alyahya maintained.
Although his assessment might sound pessimistic, but a large-scale drone and missile attack om Saudi oil installation by Iran-backed Houthi forces past week inevitably reinforces the perception of a weak or indecisive US posture toward the Islamic Republic.
Historically, any threat to Middle East oil production would have solicited a decisive response from Washington – during the Cold War or in the following years. The swift and massive US reaction to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait was a solid proof for regional counties.