Do Iranian Lawmakers Have A Copy Of Draft Nuclear Deal?
Iran's former nuclear chief Fereydoun Abbasi says Iranian lawmakers have not officially received a copy of a new nuclear agreement drafted in the Vienna talks.
Iran's former nuclear chief Fereydoun Abbasi says Iranian lawmakers have not officially received a copy of a new nuclear agreement drafted in the Vienna talks.
However, several members of the Iranian parliament (Majles) claim that they have read the text of a new agreement between Iran and the United States.
Abbasi, who is currently an member of parliament from Kazeroun in Fars province and a member of the parliament's Energy Committee, told the Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA) on Sunday that Iran’s negotiators have never briefed lawmakers on the nuclear talks, and the speaker of the Majles has also not shared an official text with MPs.
Abbasi’s remarks come while 250 lawmakers who wrote a letter to President Ebrahim Raisi telling him not to accept any agreement without a US guarantee to uphold the deal, claim to have seen the draft of an agreement.
Last week, hardliner lawmaker, Mahmoud Nabavian, a Paydari Party member, said in an interview with Fars News Agency that he and some other members of the parliament have already read the text exchanged between the Iranian and US negotiators. Incidentally, what the lawmakers wrote in the letter to Raisi on Sunday, was identical to what Nabavian had called for in terms of guarantees.
Reading Abbasi’s remarks carefully, he did not explicitly deny that a text is circulating among lawmakers. What he said was that an official version was not shared with parliament members.
He reiterated that "Unfortunately, no one in Iran has told us what has been going on between the Iranian and US negotiators." He stressed that both the Energy Committee and the National Security Committee have been left in the dark about the negotiations.
Abbasi sounding upset warned that [the officials] should not play with the Majles, adding, "under the circumstances, we cannot offer any advice to the Majles."
When he was told that it appears to outsiders there are good ties between the parliament and the administration, Abbasi said: "The information we need is not communicated to us. I have even asked other MPs whether they have been given any new insight, but it appears that we lack the information that would enable us to defend the negotiators."
Abbasi further said: "We still do not know why the other side refuses to lift the sanctions. We do not know if they have a point to make about the Islamic Revolution, Iran's defensive power, or Iran being an emerging global power.”
He added: "The two sides have no problem regarding the nuclear issue. The 2015 agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) had made everything clear and we had accepted it, although it was not in our interest. And we were carrying it out. Why didn't they [the US side] fulfil their commitments? This is what the negotiators should come forward and tell us."
Asked why Paydari members oppose the nuclear talks, Abbasi said: They are wise men, and they are not obstructionists. Of course, they are party members, but at the same time, they have their independent ideas.
Meanwhile, Abbasi who is known to be linked to Paydari, denied his membership in the party. "My problem with the negotiations is that the negotiators haven not told us anything about it."
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.