Iran International
Iranian media and pundits have warned the government that delaying a nuclear agreement until winter to get concessions from energy starved Europe is a “mirage”.
In the past few weeks Mohammad Marandi, who acts as de facto spokesman for Iran's nuclear negotiating team, has been trying to link energy needs in Europe to ongoing talks for reviving the 2015 agreement, known officially as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
“Winter is Coming”, Marandi had tweeted August 21. His tweet depicted a photo of European leaders and the US President Joe Biden with the headline “Biden Discusses Iran nuclear talks with leaders of UK, France, and Germany”.
In an interview with Al Jazeera news channel on September 4, he said Iran “wants” a deal but Europeans “need” it. “Winter is approaching, and the EU is facing a crippling energy crisis,” he told Al Jazeera.
Prominent reformist journalist and politician, Abbas Abdi, has dubbed the policy of delaying an agreement in expectation of desperation in Europe as “Winter Mirage”.
In a commentary in Etemad newspaper Saturday, Abdi warned President Ebrahim Raisi not to be deceived by those who are against restoration of the JCPOA and claim that delaying an agreement until winter will secure a better deal for Iran. “But they know well that this is only and illusion and a lie,” he wrote.
Abdi argued that the premise is completely wrong because Iran cannot supply natural gas to Europe even if they face a serious energy crisis. Due to lack of pipelines and LNG facilities Iran simply cannot export gas to Europe. Moreover, “In winters there is shortage of gas in Iran and they cut its supply to industries and even have difficulty in honoring their gas export commitments,” he said.
A report earlier this month based on official statistics revealed that Iranian industry lost $7 billion last year due to shortages of gas and electricity. To avoid public discontent, the government decided to deprive industries such as petrochemicals and steel of electricity in peak summer months and gas in the winter to supply homes, as the former administration had done.
Some pundits believe that the idea of delaying talks until winter originates from the political circle of former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili.
Journalist and political analyst Hadi Mousavi said Tuesday that Jalili and his associates recommend such strategies without any knowledge of the technical side of things at higher levels of the state. “Decisions are made on the basis of such plans because they are trusted.”
Iran holds the world’s second largest natural gas reserves, but sanctions have deprived the industry from foreign investment and technology to maintain and increase output.
Kayhan newspaper, which is known as the voice of the leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, has also insisted in many editorials and commentaries in the past month that Iran is in no rush to restore the JCPOA and urged President Raisi to suspend the nuclear talks for two months and wait for a winter energy crisis in Europe.
Abdi responded to Kayhan in a tweet on August 27, while Iran Diplomacy news and analysis website in an article titled “A Threat That Won’t Work” on September 5 said the freezing European winter script will only work for Moscow, not Tehran, and delaying talks will not help getting concessions from Washington and its European allies.
The Times of Israel Monday quoted a “senior Israeli official” travelling with Prime Minister Yair Lapid in Berlin proclaiming the death of talks to revive the 2015 deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). The official said the Israeli delegation had given “information to the Europeans that proved the Iranians are lying while the talks are still happening.”
The official called on Washington to “put a credible military threat, and everyone to push for a better agreement.” He or she said that discussions were “no longer in Malley’s hands,” with the US special envoy Robert Malley shunted aside. A State Department subsequently denied that Malley had eased out or that the US position had “toughened,” the Times of Israel reported.
Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State reiterated Monday that it was not possible to give a timeline for the JCPOA talks. US officials, including Malley as well as Blinken most recently in Brussels last Thursday, have said they will continue efforts to revive the 2015 agreement as long as this suits US national interests and has non-proliferation benefits.
In an editorial Tuesday, Bloomberg, whose criticisms of the JCPOA go back to its being signed in 2015, argued that the US should act as though the deal were dead even though “most observers now expect talks to languish at least until after the November midterm elections.”
Bloomberg argued it was time for the US to switch “to so-called Plan B,” which the paper said “might help persuade Iran to back off its most unreasonable demands — and will put the US in a better position to deal with the consequences if it doesn’t.”
Plan B – ‘closing loopholes’
Bloomberg explained its notion of ‘plan B’ as “closing sanctions loopholes that have allowed Iran to continue to sell millions of barrels of oil, primarily to China.” This would apparently involve using executive orders signed by President Donald Trump after he withdrew the US from the JCPOA in 2018 to impose penalties on Chinese entities importing Iranian crude or in other trade with Tehran.
‘Plan B’ would also involve, Bloomberg said, accelerating efforts to “link the air defense networks of Israel and friendly Gulf nations,” and “speeding delivery [to Israel] of key systems such as refueling tankers for long-range air strikes,” presumably for bombing Iranian nuclear or other targets.
“It's no surprise that Iran is using this time to strengthen its capabilities for the future,” Bloomberg concluded. “The US and its partners should do the same.”
Mohammad Marandi, a spokesman for Iranian nuclear negotiators, advised viewers of Al-Jazeera television Sunday not to lightly dismiss prospects of JCPOA revival. Tehran and Washington were, he said, still “very close” to agreement.
Had the US accepted Iran’s August 15 response to a European text circulated August 8 in an effort to conclude 18-month talks, “we would have had a deal by now,” Marandi said. Against EU and US claims Iran subsequently hardened its stance, Marandi argued it had rather tried to close “loopholes” over sanctions remaining in the text and reminded viewers European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell had called the August 15 Iranian response “reasonable.” Lapid at the time called it “a bad agreement.”
The Iranian spokesman claimed on-going enquiries made by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) into Iran’s pre-2003 nuclear work — when, he said, Iran “purchased a couple of old models of Pakistani centrifuges to use them to develop their own” — could easily be resolved if the matter were not “politicized” by members of the IAEA governing board, which currently meets in Vienna.
‘Internal issues that team Biden faces’
“This delay is due to internal issues that team Biden faces,” Marandi said. “They’re afraid that if they sign on this document before the [November 8 mid-term Congressional] election, they’ll come under criticism from Trump and…allies in the Israeli regime…The problem is that the Americans don’t want this discussed in Congress right now.”
Hillary Mann Leverett, a former state department official, told Jazeera the US position had been shaped by Biden advisers calculating by early August that “the Democrats had a better chance of keeping at least the Senate in the upcoming November 8 elections,” making the administration “even more hesitant” over JCPOA revival for fear of “opening up a wide prospect of criticism from 2024 presidential candidate Trump and other Republicans.”
Mann Leverett also highlighted domestic politics in Israel, where with November 1 parliamentary elections looming Lapid is trumpeting his approach to Iran as more effective than that of rival Benjamin Netanyahu. She warned that both Washington and Israel lacked any real sense of urgency over the Tehran’s expanding nuclear program given years of predictions that Iran was on the verge of developing atomic weapons.
Lapid has argued that his tactful approach to France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Biden administration has been more productive than the assertive stance of his rival Benjamin Netanyahu, as the two men lead their respective political blocs towards Israel’s November 1 parliamentary election.
“Yesterday the E3 countries announced that a nuclear agreement with Iran will not be signed in the near future, that the IAEA’s open files regarding Iran are not about to be closed,” Lapid said Sunday. “Israel is conducting a successful diplomatic campaign to stop the nuclear agreement and prevent the lifting of sanctions on Iran.”
However, what pushed the Europeans to say that there are “no active negotiations” was Iran’s latest response to a European Union draft agreement submitted to Tehran and Washington on August 8. Iran’s response was called “non-constructive” by the Biden administration and seen by the E3 as a sign of lack of willingness to make a deal by Tehran.
If Iran’s response was different after 17 months of talks, the Biden administration had already agreed to the EU draft and the optimism prevailing in August would have been justified.
Iran insists that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) drop an enquiry into uranium traces found in sites linked to Tehran’s nuclear work before 2003. It also demands various sorts of guarantees from the US.
Time for ‘new agreement’
A “senior Israeli official” told journalists Sunday that the time had come to look for a “new agreement,” leading some Israeli media to proclaim the JCPOA dead. Unless the IAEA, Iran and the US together with the E3 change their minds, “there won't be any choice” but to abandon the 2015 deal, the Israeli official reportedly said.
Lapid said the aim of his trip to Germany was to coordinate “positions on the nuclear issue” and that he would be “finalizing the details of the strategic, economic, and security cooperation document we are going to sign.”
Lapid also stressed Israel was “working to prevent Iran from establishing terrorist bases throughout the Middle East and especially in Syria.” Israel regards Lebanon’s Hezbollah, a close Iranian ally, as well as most Palestinian groups as ‘terrorist.’ Lapid said there was a “growing terror threat in the West Bank,” according to the Jerusalem Post.
Consulting partners
The E3, apparently short of declaring the JCPOA talks dead as Lapid suggested, said it would “consult, alongside international partners” on how best to proceed, both over the continued expansion in Iran’s nuclear program and its failure to satisfy the IAEA over the uranium traces.
In Iran, some argue Europe’s attitude towards the talks may change as winter brings energy shortages due to sanctions on Russian energy exports and European leaders eye Iran’s 90 million barrels of oil in storage, which would be released with US sanctions eased should the JCPOA be restored.
Ali Akbar Salehi, who was head of the Atomic Energy Agency of Iran (AEOI) when the JCPOA was signed in 2015, defended the agreement this week against critics by arguing it had not fundamentally stymied Iran’s technological progress. Hence, Salehi argued, the AEOI had been quickly able to expand the program once parliament, in the wake of the November 2020 had passed legislation requiring a higher level of uranium enrichment and employing more advanced centrifuges.