Iran Not To Back Down In Nuclear Talks, Raisi Insists

One report suggested that the United States has refrained so far from sending a counterproposal to Iran regarding its demand that the Revolutionary Guard be removed from the US Foreign Terrorist Organization list as a pre-condition to reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, the JCPOA.

Talks in Vienna that have lasted one year were close to completion at the end of February as the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. But then Iran that was insisting all along for the removal of all US sanctions imposed since 2018, demanded the delisting of the IRGC. The US position in the talks is that it will remove major sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear program, but not other sanctions that are related to terrorism or human rights violations.

Once the issue became public, opposition in the United States grew. Most Republicans and many Democrats openly put pressure on the White House not to delist the Guards, that are known to have caused mayhem in the Middle East by supporting a large network of militant groups, all the way to the Mediterranean shores and beyond.

The opposition made it less likely for the Biden team to agree to Iran’s demand, specially as Democrats face an uphill battle in the November elections.

But a nuance in White House statements leads to the possibility that President Biden might be thinking to delist the IRGC but not its extraterritorial Qods (Quds) Force, which is Iran’s direct arm for building up anti-US, anti-Israeli, and anti-Saudi forces in the region.

An opinion piece by David Ignatius in the Washington Post on Friday mentioned that sanctioning the IRGC in 2019 was somewhat of a controversial issue, as some in the government and outside experts believed the multi-faceted entity was not only Iran’s main military force but also a major player in Iran’s economy and the public sector in general.

But opponents of giving a reprieve to the IRGC argue that separating it from the Qods force would be a wholly artificial distinction, just as trying to distinguish between the political and military wings of Hamas or Hezbollah. The US has traditionally rejected such a distinction.

Frequent Iranian threats directed at the United States and Israel are officially pronounced by the Revolutionary Guard, not just by the Qods Force, which speaks occasionally. Practically, the IRGC might even officially disband the Qods and create another outfit overnight that would carry out the same mission in the region.

The issue is Iran’s anti-West ideology kept alive by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who reinforces it in every public speech. Every Iranian government entity is supposed to fight against the archenemy, America, and Israel, according to the official dictum of the Islamic Republic.

Even at the height of improved ties in the wake of the JCPOA, Khamenei declared in 2016 that the Islamic Republic had no intention of cooperating on regional disagreements with main enemy the United States and “evil” Britain. He repeated the same message in November 2017, before former president Donald Trump had pulled out of the JCPOA and imposed sanctions.

The Biden administration, however, believes that the revival of the JCPOA is important to delay Iran’s nuclear breakout timeline, while opponents believe in continuing ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions until the regime is crippled or collapses.

Amir-Abdollahian, and the nuclear negotiating team, have been under fire from ultra-hardliners' in the past few days over the contents of a possible agreement to restore the 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Ultra-hardliner lawmakers close to the Paydari Front and former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili have in the past few days strongly criticized Amir-Abdollahian and the negotiation team for what they say is agreeing to make too many concessions to the US and other Western powers. The "red lines" set by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the Parliament, they say, have been crossed.

In a Twitter post on Thursday, Hadi Beiginejad, a hardliner lawmaker claimed that he has examined a "draft of the agreement" and found not only it fails to safeguard Iran's national interests, but it brings on "many more dangers" than the original JCPOA.

Defending the foreign minister in an interview with the official news agency IRNA on Thursday, another lawmaker Ardeshir Motahari responded that some lawmakers were making claims that would only lead to "weakening the negotiating team and the foreign minister".

"Some people are a bowl that is hotter than the soup when it comes to analyzing the process of the talks. They should know being in the middle of the field is very different from making analysis sitting behind a desk," Motahari said about critics of the current negotiators.

In an interview with Gharn-e No in March, Abolfazl Hasanbeigi, former lawmaker and member of the Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, named the Paydari ultra-hardliners in the Parliament as the main opponents of the restoration of the JCPOA who are "few" but "shout" loudly to "keep themselves alive".

Motahari refuted the claims of those who have said their criticisms are based on a "draft of an agreement" and said everyone should believe Amir-Abdollahian if he says there is no draft yet. He also noted that "higher officials", presumably Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, are always receiving reports on the process of the talks and receiving advice.

In late February and early March all sides involved in the Vienna talks that started in April 2021 were expressing optimism over the restoration of the JCPOA but on Wednesday the US Secretary of State Antoni Blinken said he was not "overly optimistic" with the prospect of a deal.

The most important of Iran’s ‘red lines’ is presumably removing the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) from the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO). The Biden administration has reportedly agreed to delist the IRGC but only if Iran agrees not to seek revenge for the US killing of the IRGC's Qods Force commander, Ghasem Soleimani, and to change its behavior in the region.

"Who can believe that any negotiator -- who has been fighting with foreign sides over an issue as important as the restoration of the JCPOA and the lifting of sanctions, with the blessing of the system (nezam) -- would not abide by the system's red lines and make an agreement," Mohammad-Sadegh Kharrazi, a former reformist diplomat, asked in a commentary in Ettelaat newspaper on Thursday.

In Iranian media and political discourse, system (nezam), usually refers to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has the ultimate authority to call the shots on important issues.

On Thursday, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mike Milley told a Congressional hearing that he opposes removing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from the US terror list and believes the Qods Force to be a terrorist organization.

“I’d say that the President shares the chairman’s [Gen. Milley] view that IRGC-Quds Forces are terrorists, and beyond that, we aren’t going to comment on… topics in the nuclear talks,” Deputy State Department Spokesperson Jalina Porter said.

Negotiations that started one year ago in Vienna to revive the 2015 nuclear deal known as JCPOA are in a state of limbo after Iran demanded the removal of IRGC from the US Foreign Terrorist Organization blacklist. The Biden Administration has apparently not made a decision on Iran’s demand.

Most Republicans and many Democratic lawmakers have increasingly voiced opposition to delisting the IRGC, which has created a network of militant proxy groups in the Middle East and threatens US allies.

The nuance in the State Department statement is about whether President Biden considers the whole of IRGC a terrorist organization or is trying to only keep the Qods Force on the terror list and remove the larger organization to reach a deal with Tehran.

In a brief interview with Iran International’s correspondent Arash Alaei on Thursday, the Texas Republican Senator said the reason the administration doesn’t want everybody to know about the details “unfortunately is the deal they’re negotiating [which] is a terrible deal for America”.

“Joe Biden has asked [Russian President] Vladimir Putin to negotiate on our behalf, and Russia is negotiating with Iran right now in Vienna. Russia is our enemy and Iran is our enemy”, he added, noting that “the one thing they can agree on is policies that endanger the safety and security of America”.

“This deal is a catastrophic mistake and that’s why the Biden administration is so desperate to hide the details of it from the elected members of the Congress”, Cruz said.

Former president Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran known as JCPOA in 2018, saying it was in adequate to keep Tehran from building nuclear weapons. He imposed ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions. President Joe Biden announced before the 2020 presidential elections that Trump’s policy was wrong, and he would work to revive the JCPOA.

Republicans have opposed Biden’s approach from the beginning and their objections became more intense as reports emerged that the White House was weighing the removal of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard from the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO). More Democrats have lately joined the opposition as talks in Vienna to revive the JCPOA have stalled.

About the administration’s options in case of the collapse of the deal, he said, “What they should do is return to the policy of [Donald Trump’s] maximum pressure; they should impose sanctions, they should enforce sanctions”.

Slamming Biden for easing on the oil sanctions that has seen Iran increase its oil exports and revenues, he said, “Right now the Biden administration is turning a blind eye while Iran openly flouts the oil sanctions. The Biden administration is allowing the Ayatollah to sell a million barrels of oil a day with no consequences”.

“The Biden administration has delisted [Iran-backed] Houthis as terrorists even as they carry out ongoing terror attacks”, Cruz said, adding that “the answer is to reverse course entirely; end their policies of weakness, appeasement, and surrender, and instead follow a policy of maximum pressure to prevent the ayatollah from developing nuclear weapons and carrying out terror attacks against Americans and our allies”.

Mohammad Reza Ghaebi, Head of Iran's Permanent Mission to International Organizations in Vienna and acting ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told reporters in Vienna that Iran would not provide access to the cameras installed by the agency in Esfahan if the 2015 nuclear deal, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is not restored.

“That is why the agency has announced that it was unable to confirm whether or not the manufacturing of spare parts for centrifuges has begun in Esfahan,” Ghaebi noted.

The Esfahan site was built to replace the TESA Karaj Complex, a now decommissioned workshop in the west of the capital Tehran. The Karaj site was damaged in a June 2021 attack that Iran said Israel was responsible for. The IAEA has confirmed that the production of centrifuge rotor tubes and bellows at TESA Karaj Complex has stopped.

Ghaebi added that on April 4 Iran informed the IAEA that all the machines for production had been transferred from Karaj to Natanz and on the same day allowed the agency's inspectors verify the move and that the machines were not operating.

IAEA inspectors installed surveillance cameras at the Esfahan facility January 24 to ensure the machines intended for the production of centrifuge rotor tubes and bellows were under monitoring but the production of the parts there had not started.

Reuters reported on Wednesday that in a new confidential report to its member states, the IAEA has said that Iran moved all its machines making centrifuge parts from the workshop at Karaj to its Natanz site. The equipment, according to the report, remained under IAEA seal at Natanz and was not operational.

The report also said that Iran set up another site at Esfahan where the IAEA has also installed cameras but Iran has not given access to the data and recordings from these cameras.

“Without access to the data and recordings collected by these cameras, the agency is unable to confirm whether the production of centrifuge components at the workshop in Esfahan has begun,” the report to IAEA member states said according to Reuters.

In December 2020 the Iranian Parliament passed a law to mandate the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) mandating the government, if US sanctions against Iran were not lifted, to start 20 percent enrichment, install 1,000 advanced centrifuges, and produce at least 120 kg of highly enriched uranium (which is at least 20 percent) within two months of the bill’s approval.

The legislation also required reduction of IAEA monitoring to the to the level required by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty (NPT). The agency had exercised greater access both under the JCPOA and Iran’s Additional Protocol to the NPT.

Under temporary agreements with the IAEA, Iran continues to keep footage from the agency's cameras instead of destroying them, as it had said it would, but does not provide them to the IAEA.