Iranian Lawmaker Says Western Guarantees Needed For A Deal
Iran will not surrender to any kind of threats, pressures or sanctions, a prominent lawmaker said Monday, while nuclear talks were taking place in Vienna.
Iran will not surrender to any kind of threats, pressures or sanctions, a prominent lawmaker said Monday, while nuclear talks were taking place in Vienna.
Jalil Rahimi Jahanabadi, a member of parliament’s foreign policy and national security committee, told the government’s official news website IRNA that it is the West that should act “rationally” in the nuclear negotiations.
“We hope that the West will understand the Islamic Republic’s message,” Rahimi a member of the hardliner majority in parliament said, “because [we] will not dismantle our nuclear installations or reduce our [uranium] enrichment.” He vowed to keep the uranium, which Iran has enriched to 20 and 60-percent, and not accept international monitoring beyond the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, without the West giving a series of guarantees.
First, the United States and Europe must provide a guarantee not to leave the nuclear deal. They must also guarantee that oil export revenues reach the Iranian government.
Iran has been emphasizing the issue of a guarantee by the US to stay in a new nuclear agreement even before multilateral talks started in April 2021. Tehran’s argument is that former US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and Iran needs assurance that this will not happen again.
However, no US president can provide such a guarantee if an agreement is not a formal treaty, which would need Senate ratification – an almost impossible task with the highly controversial JCPOA.
Iranian officials have also demanded a host of other guarantees, including a pledge by the West that Iran would be able to attract foreign investments if it agrees to limit its nuclear program. The United States has promised to lift its oil export and banking sanctions, but no one can guarantee if Iran would receive foreign investments.
Rahimi told IRNA that the West does not realize that the world has changed and countries like China or Iran will not carry out their orders. “Iran, in terms of military, political and economic power is not a weak state to be subservient to the West, but Westerners look at the world as though it is still the 18th or 19th centuries…”
The Wall Street Journal on Sunday cited the European Union's coordinator of the talks, Enrique Mora, as saying the negotiations to restore the JCPOA are close to completion, but it remained unclear whether Tehran will accept the final deal. The text of a deal could be closed in the coming hours, Mora had said. An unnamed Iranian foreign ministry official denied the report.
“Given the continuation of discussions on some remaining important issues, we’re not yet at a stage to finalize the text. “We believe that Vienna Talks can be concluded soon provided that the other party makes an appropriate decision. But we are not at that stage yet,” IRNA quoted the official as saying.
After sixteen months of negotiations, diplomats gathered in Vienna last week for what some said was a last-ditch effort to reach an agreement. Apparently, Iran insists on receiving guarantees and also demands that an investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency of its past secret nuclear work be shelved.
Rahimi also said that despite its capabilities in enriching uranium, Tehran is ready for talks to resolve the issue but “the problem Iran has with Western countries is the degree of their understanding of global realities.”
Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh told the moderate conservative news website Khabar Online in Tehran on Sunday, August 7, that it is only a US guarantee to lift the sanctions, and a guarantee that there would be no impediment to Iran’s oil exports, other trade and foreign investments .
The former conservative lawmaker who headed the foreign policy and national security committee of the parliament added that it is only with such a guarantee that a revived version of the JCPOA could be signed and put into effect.
According to Khabar Online, an agreement is still not within reach despite all the hopes expressed by Iranian and US officials at different times. Meanwhile, despite conflicting statements by Iranian officials, Iran's former nuclear chief Fereidoun Davani has said, "Iranian negotiators have so far withheld from the nation and the parliament what their preconditions for the revival of the JCPOA are," and that everything in the press about this is sheer speculation.
Falahatpisheh said that "Iran has spent a lot of money on developing its uranium enrichment infrastructure and shutting it down will be a waste. So, Iran deserves a bigger concession if it is to accept to limit its nuclear program at this stage. This bigger concession could be lifting the sanctions and guaranteeing the implementation of the resulting agreement."
He said that US President Joe Biden has access to five different tools to guarantee an agreement. These tools include an executive order that will allow him to circumvent possible opposition at the Congress. He added that such a guarantee should make sure that any new agreement signed after the revival of the JCPOA would not be subjected to new sanctions.
He went further by saying that US Presidents can do anything if pressured but did not say how Iran can exert that pressure on Biden. Meanwhile, Falahatpisheh did not respond to Khabar Online's question about whether Iran would be ready to modify its preconditions if the US president gives Tehran the guarantees it wants.
Yet the Iranian President, Ebrahim Raisi may have another idea about a guarantee. His deputy chief of staff for political affairs Mohammad Jamshidi wrote in an August 5 tweet: "In all recent telephone conversations between President Raisi and the Presidents of France, Russia and China, it was his firm position that ONLY when the so called Safeguard Issues is resolved and closed, can the final agreement be achieved."
Iranian officials have often also raised the question of receiving foreign investments, while some Iranian commentators have pointed out that Western governments cannot force or convince private companies to invest in a country if they deem the prevailing conditions as risky.
Several Khabar Online readers expressed concern in the comments section about whether it is safe to allow the Iranian government to receive billions of dollars if an agreement is reached. They said that eventually the government would channel the funds to its regional proxy groups.
Others said they were worried that some corrupt officials would embezzle released assets. Several other readers commented that the US government is not trustworthy, and an agreement made with the current government could be torpedoed by the next US administration.
The twitter account of the Islamic Republic’s embassy in Austria published photos of Tehran’s lead negotiator Ali Bagheri-Kani at the mourning ceremonies of the Islamic month of Muharram. The event was held at Vienna’s Islamic center of Imam Ali, a Shiite mosque.
The highlight of the month-long ceremonies of Muharram are the Days of Tasu'a and Ashura, the anniversary of the slaying of Shiite Imam Hussein and his 72 companions by his rivals to the leadership of Muslims. Ceremonies have been held for centuries in Iran and among Shiites in other countries, marking the event in the 680 AD battle of Karbala, in present-day Iraq, and have gained greater state support since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
This round of the Vienna talks reportedly focus on a text circulated in late July by Josep Borrell, the European Union foreign policy chief, to bridge gaps between the United States and Iran over how the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action -- or JCPOA -- can be revived. It is unclear how specific are proposals in Borrell’s text and how far he outlines a process.
European officials have presented a tough face to reporters gathered outside the Palais Coburg hotel in Vienna, insisting that the current talks will not be “reopening” negotiations, and urging Tehran not to make “unrealistic demands.”