Iran International
Iran's foreign minister Tuesday stressed that Tehran and Washington are still exchanging messages through the European Union despite the halt in Vienna talks.
Negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement, JCPOA, have not stopped but continue at another pace through the exchange of written messages with the Americans through the European Union representative with the aim of lifting US sanction on Iran, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told Beirut-based Yemeni Almasirah television on Tuesday.
“We urged the American side to be realistic,” Amir-Abdollahian said. “Removing sanctions in all areas and receiving economic guarantees are among the most important items on our negotiating team’s agenda,' the Iranian foreign minister said.
The US State Department Spokesman Ned Price also said Monday that that the EU coordinator of the talks, Enrique Mora, continues to convey messages back and forth between Tehran and Washington. Price, however, declined to comment on whether Tehran has accepted a reported offer by Mora to go to Tehran to break the deadlock in the talks.
"The main issue is the relations between Iran and the US, not the role that Europe can play in the talks … Europe's role is one of a go between. The go between can play a limited role and will not have an effective and decisive role in any negotiations," Nader Entesar, professor of political sciences at South Alabama University told the Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA) on Tuesday.
In what highlighted the Biden administration’s commitment to revive the JCPOA, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday that the United States will not stand in the way of Russia-Iran nuclear cooperation if the JCPOA is restored.
Iran currently has one Russian-built nuclear power plant and a $10 billion contract with Moscow to build two further power plants in Bushehr.
Opponents of reviving the JCPOA argue that one of the problems with the Vienna talks so far is that Russia is set to benefit $10 billion while it is being sanctioned for its invasion of Ukraine.
Another issue is Tehran’s demand for its Revolutionary Guard to be removed from the US list of terrorist organization. The Iranian foreign minister made no mention of the demand, which currently appears to be the most important hurdle to signing off on a deal to but said the Americans have "perfectly understood Iran's red lines".
US State Department spokesman Ned Price reiterated on Monday that Tehran will have to make concessions on some issues if they want to put demands on the table that are outside the confines of the JCPOA. “That’s just the very nature of any negotiation,” he said in a veiled reference to the IRGC designation.
Price told reporters Monday that the Biden administration will continue dialogue with Tehran via its partners, including the European Union, to achieve a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA for as long as a mutual return to compliance would be in US interests.
"If and when we reached the point where the non-proliferation benefits of a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA would not overcome the progress that Iran has achieved in its nuclear program in the past three or so years, that’s when we’ll reassess and pursue an alternative course," he said.
US Department of Defense Spokesman John Kirby on Monday told reporters that the Pentagon backs the government's efforts to revive the JCPOA and prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons. "No problem in the Middle East is easier to solve with Iran having a nuclear weapon," he said, adding that even during negotiations, Iran has continued to develop "certain nuclear capabilities", apparently a reference to Iran's enrichment of uranium to 60 percent purity which has brought it closer to 90 percent purity required for building nukes.
Reformist Ashraf Boroujerdi has said, following a meeting with Raisi along with two dozen politicians last week, that "Raisi himself has come to the conclusion that a nuclear agreement should be reached, but some others who have the upper hand in the government are adamant that Tehran should not sign an agreement with Washington." However, she did not name the elements she believed have the upper hand in making decisions for the government.
Meanwhile, Iranian academic and reformist political activist Sadegh Zibakalam says Iranian officials were misled to believe that Russia will occupy Ukraine in less than one week and .
The officials believed Russia would plant a puppet government in Kiyv and become the master of the world and Iran would benefit from the situation as Russia's ally, said Zibakalm in a live Instagram video as reported by Didban Iran [Iran Monitor] website.
Zibakalam, who was sure in the interview that Iran and the United States will inevitably come to an agreement, expressed concern over "the regional countries' alliance against Iran and the destructive role played by Russia and China."
He said: "We are upbeat about the rise in oil price, and we know that President Ebrahim Raisi is right about a boost in Iran's oil exports, because with the United States deliberately ignoring its sanctions on Iran's oil industry Iran has been selling oil to some Chinese private companies at prices no one is aware of. However, if the Americans make sure that there will be no agreement with Iran, they will twist the arms of the Chinese in a way that they would forget about purchasing oil from Iran."
Zibakalam further added that "a favorable breeze is reaching Iran from the direction of the United States. However, it appears that the Raisi administration has no strategy about how to benefit from the situation." Zibakalam went on to say that "We know today that Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi had come to an agreement with the US side before President Ebrahim Raisi took office, but the new administration initially ignored Araqchi's achievement before finally realizing that the negotiations should take place based on the frameworks provided by Araqchi."
Zibakalam then quoted former Culture Minister Ali Jannati as saying that "it was agreed in the talks by Araqchi that the IRGC should be delisted as a terrorist organization and the sanctions against it should be lifted."
The academic said that the United States has now realized it has not managed to stop Iran from high-level uranium enrichment, and Iran's missile development program as well as cut Iran's long hands from the region, at least in the short run. As a result, United States has come to the conclusion that it should adopt a milder policy toward Iran. However, Iran has misunderstood this soft approach. Zibakalam stressed that Iran has wrongly interpreted the change in US policy as a retreat.
In an interview with Didban Iran, former diplomat Fereidoun Majlesi also said that the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) does not want to be removed from the US list of terrorist organizations because in that case Iran would sign a new nuclear agreement with the United States.
Majlesi argued that the IRGC has an international agenda that may not be implemented if there is an agreement between Iran and the United States. He said that is also the reason why there is a resistance in Iran against abiding by the regulations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
Like Zibakalam, Majlesi also agreed that Russia's invasion of Ukraine has made a nuclear agreement with the United States harder to reach. "Iran's official support for Russia in the hope of benefitting from Russia's measure adversely affected the negotiations to revive the nuclear agreement (JCPOA). But Russians only follow their own interests. There is no reason for them to follow Iran's interests because they do not need us," said Majlesi.