Iran FM Says US Should Show Goodwill In Nuclear Talks
Iran’s foreign minister said Sunday that US President Joe Biden should show some “goodwill”, if his statements about reviving the 2015 nuclear deal are serious.
Iran’s foreign minister said Sunday that US President Joe Biden should show some “goodwill”, if his statements about reviving the 2015 nuclear deal are serious.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who was speaking at a meeting of officials dealing with foreign economic relations in Tehran, referred to Washington’s requests for direct talks with Iran and said that the United States should show goodwill. He emphasized that Tehran had asked the USto release some of Iran’s frozen funds prior to a final nuclear agreement but had received no positive reaction.
Amor-Abdollahian first made a direct demand in September 2021, while visiting New York, for the US to greenlight the release of $10 billion from Iran’s frozen funds.
Amir-Abdollahian once again on Sunday reiterated that Iran stands and will continue to stand on its “red lines” in the Vienna nuclear talks.
“The Americans continuously speak of the need for direct talks with Iran. After examining the issue and considering the views the Americans have, we did not find a benefit in direct talks,” he said. Amir-Abdollahian added, that the US “has not done anything positive” to provide confidence.
The chief Iranian diplomat’s remarks did not seem to be suggesting a new formal pre-condition for an agreement in Vienna, but it did appear that he wanted to emphasize the need for some sort of “goodwill” by the Biden Administration.
The negotiations stalled in mid-March after 11 months of talks among the original signatories of the 2015 nuclear agreement known as JCPOA, apparently because of Iran’s demanded from the US to remove its Revolutionary Guard from the list of foreign terrorist organizations.
At one point in his remarks, Amir-Abdollahian said that talks came to a halt after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Western side told Iran that even if all outstanding issues were resolved, Russia would not agree to finalize a deal. In fact, Russia did make a new demandright before the talks ended in Vienna asking the US for waivers from Ukraine sanctions in its dealings with Iran.
Amir-Abdollahian maintained that instead of showing any goodwill, the United States imposed new sanctions on certain Iranian individuals and companies. He suggested that President Biden could release frozen funds with just one “executive order.”
He repeated that Tehran told Washington, “Not to create hurdles” and delay an agreement. “If our red lines are observed,” we can reach a good and lasting agreement, and now “it is the American side that must demonstrate goodwill,” Amir-Abdollahian said.
He added that the diplomatic path is open and claimed that the three European participants in the talks, the United Kingdom, France and Germany are also unhappy about unreasonable American demands.
The foreign minister emphasized that the people of Iran should know the government is striving for an agreement and lifting of sanctions, but he also repeated government’s policy of self-reliance in overcoming the impact of sanctions.
Iran’s economy continues to struggle amid a 40-percent annual inflation rate and a host of other serious issues mainly caused by US sanctions imposed by former president Donald Trump after he withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018. Criticisms and a general mood of despair has intensified in recent weeks as food prices continue to climb, and the government has no immediate solution to offer.
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.