Signs Grow Of Iran Hardening Stance In Nuclear Talks
Iran’s atomic energy chief said Friday evening that Tehran’s expansion of the nuclear program had made “the enemies decide to go back to their commitments.”
Iran’s atomic energy chief said Friday evening that Tehran’s expansion of the nuclear program had made “the enemies decide to go back to their commitments.”
Speaking in Kashan in honor of “nuclear martyrs” – presumably assassinated Iranian scientists – Mohammad Eslami extolled the benefits of nuclear technology in power generation, agriculture and medical treatment. “The enemy has tried to prevent the Islamic Republic from obtaining advanced technology,” he said.
Eslami has been among leading officials, including President Ebrahim Raisi, insisting the International Atomic Energy Agency must end its enquiries into uranium traces found in Iran as a condition for Tehran returning its nuclear program to the limits of the 2015 nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). Tehran began exceeding JCPOA limits 2019, after the United States left the JCPOA in 2018.
Eslami’s latest remarks come as analysts detect signs of Tehran hardening its stance in on-going nuclear talks, despite both and the US reacting positively to an August 15 Iranian response to a European Union draft text circulated August 8 aiming to bridge US-Iran difference.
An official from one of the European JCPOA signatories – France, Germany, and the United Kingdom; the ‘E3’ – told journalist Laura Rozen Friday that Iran’s latest input on the EU draft text, which Tehran sent Thursday, had “moved us very far back – at a time when, thanks to the EU co-ordinator’s perseverance, and everyone’s flexibility, we were almost there.”
The official’s outlook was bleak. “It’s very difficult to know whether this is fixable,” he said. “In any case, Iran has given a clear signal it is not interested in a deal now.”
US spokesman Vendant Patel said late Thursday that Iran’s input was “not constructive,” a statement Iran deemed ‘hasty.’ Adriene Watson, spokesperson for the National Security Council, moderated the US response later, describing negotiations as a “regular back and forth” in which “some gaps have closed in recent weeks but others remain.”
EU ‘at outer limits of flexibility’
The European official speaking to Rosen highlighted Iran’s approach to the IAEA probe where he said the August 8 EU text was “at the outer limits of our flexibility already – and which they implicitly accepted in their August 15 response.” The Wall Street Journal’s Laurence Norman also reported Thursday he had been told by several sources Iran had added the closure of the IAEA probe “back into its formal concerns.”
In an interview with al-Jazeera television late Friday, relayed Saturday by the official news agency IRNA, Mohammad Marandi, who acts as a spokesman for the Iranian negotiating team, stressed the importance of tightening the language in any accord reviving the JCPOA.
Marandi said that “ambiguities or gaps” could be misused by the US to follow the example of President Donald Trump in withdrawing from the JCPOA. He also stressed the importance of resolving, before the 2015 deal was revived, “fake and politicized accusations made by the IAEA against Iran in the Board of Governors.”
‘Necessary political will’
The US and E3 have insisted Iran must satisfy the agency over the uranium traces, regardless of the JCPOA under its commitment as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This 35-member IAEA board passed a resolution raised by the US and E3 censuring Iran.
Iran, by contrast, has argued there is a 2015 precedent in the IAEA closing its enquiries into Tehran’s pre-2003 work, only to revive them after allegations made by Israel in 2018. In his Jazeera interview, Marandi highlighted June’s visit of IAEA chief Rafael Mariano Grossi to Israel shortly before the board voted as evidence that “their [the IAEA’s] stance towards Iran has been politicized.”
Despite remaining challenges in the talks, some see agreement looming. Citing Israel’s Channel 12, Iran International Saturday reported an Israeli foreign ministry report expecting this “within weeks.” Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s ambassador to the IAEA, tweeted Friday that the “Iranian suggestions aren’t over-ambitious and can be accommodated provided there is the necessary political will.”
A European diplomat told Iran International Friday there was nothing to add to Josep Borrell’s hope expressed Wednesday of reviving Iran nuclear deal in “coming days.” Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, had said after a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Prague that near-17 months of talks had led to “common ground” and the basis for “an agreement that takes into account…everyone’s concerns.”
Since then, however, US State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said late Thursday that Iran’s latest input, made Thursday, was “not constructive.” Politico cited a “senior Biden administration official” saying: “Based on their answer, we appear to be moving backwards.”
The latest stage in the 17-month effort to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), has essentially become a US-Iran, EU-mediate, indirect dialogue based on the EU text circulated August 8. Iran responded August 15, and then the US August 24. Iran’s latest input, sent as usual through EU mediators, was Friday described as “constructive” and “aimed at finalizing the negotiations” by Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani.
The Iranian website KhabarOnline has a piece based on a recent Clubhouse discussion in which Hasan Behestipour, political analyst at the Institute for Iran-Eurasia Studies (IRAS), called the current process “ping pong diplomacy.” While Behestipour acknowledged that in an ongoing diplomacy, “it is not possible to discuss the details,” he suggested that “media management” could be better.
‘People are waiting to know how long this takes’
“Whether we like it or not, these talks and negotiations have affected people’s lives [in Iran],” Behestipour said. “If America has given an answer, people are interested to know what the answer of America is generally about…People are waiting to know how long this process will take…I think that the evidence shows that both Iran and America need an agreement and both are trying to reach an agreement with maximum points.”
The weeks of ‘ping pong’ has given space for a wide airing of views, including from those wary of compromise. Mehdi Sa’adati, a hardliner parliamentary deputy who was a high-ranking IRGC commander for many years, quoted in the official news agency IRNA, argued Iranian negotiators needed to stand firm on verifying the lifting of US sanctions, ‘guarantees’ over Washington’s commitment to a renewed agreement, and clarity that any US sanctions against Iran’s Revolutionary Guards would not affect “other economic areas.”
Sa’adati also demanded the removal of the “safeguards issue,” an apparent reference to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) probe into mysterious uranium traces found in Iran and linked to pre-2003 work. This is line with public statements by Iranian officials, including President Ebrahim Raisi, that the IAEA enquiry should end before the JCPOA is revived.
But Sa’adati rejected the idea these issues might be dealt with “later,” insisting they had to be “clarified in these talks.” This put him at odds with a raft of recent reports suggesting the Iran-US talks were looking at a stage-by-stage return to the JCPOA, with the IAEA probe dealt with perhaps 120 days after the initial agreement to restore the JCPOA.
‘A much longer stick’
Sa’adati also criticized the IAEA director-general Rafael Mariano Grossi for his June visit to Israel, which holds nuclear weapons clandestinely and has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty. Iran has charged that the IAEA probe into Iran’s pre-2003 activities was closed in 2015 and then revived only after Israeli allegations.
In Israel, Ram Ben-Barak, head of the parliament’s foreign affairs and defense committee, told the 102 FM radio station that “a much better deal” was needed with “a much longer stick.” Ben-Barak, former deputy director of the Mossad extraterritorial force, emphasized the importance of the IAEA probe to get “honest and real answers about what they did there,” but also referred to an option of military force to end Iran’s nuclear program.
“What Israel wants is something better in place of this deal,” he said. “Something better means telling the Iranians ‘Listen, you will not have a nuclear program’.”