Congressional Heat Increases On Biden To Get Tougher With Iran

Grossi who was in London on Wednesday attending the Ukraine Recovery Conference told our correspondent that regarding Iran’s nuclear program “There is a lot of work to be done. There are certain points that Iran still needs to clarify.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency has been seeking answers from Iran on traces of uranium found at undeclared nuclear research sites dating back to more than two decades ago. Grossi reached an agreement in Tehran in March to resolve the issue, but progress has been slow.

Iran also removed many monitoring cameras IAEA had installed in its nuclear facilities according to previous agreements, as it ramped up uranium enrichment in 2021.

“I have said that we would hope their collaboration would be stronger in order to provide the assurances that are expected [to make sure] everything is in order,” Grossi added.

He also welcomed what he called “processes” regarding attempts by the United States to interact with the Islamic Republic to resolve pressing issues related to its nuclear program.

“We know that the United States is also attempting to have some consultations with Iran. We welcome all processes, but of course we have a specific mandate when it comes to Iran, which is inspecting and safeguarding the program to prevent any proliferation,” Grossi maintained.

Lahbib especially is under scrutiny for having approved visas requests while Iran and Russia are under international sanctions and only three weeks after Belgian NGO worker Olivier Vandecasteele was released from an Iranian jail. He was exchanged in a controversial move with a former Iranian diplomat convicted in a Belgian court of leading a terror plot in Europe and serving a long prison sentence.

De Croo and Lahbib said they didn't want to risk a diplomatic row with Iran close to the release of Vandecasteele and three other Europeans, but lawmakers from opposition as well as coalition parties contest that reasoning.

When in Brussels, the Iranian delegation filmed Belgo-Iranian lawmaker Darya Safai and Iranian opposition members, Belgian national broadcaster RTBF reported.

Safai, who was a prominent activist in Iran before fleeing to Belgium in 2000, said she no longer felt safe in Belgium.

Tehran' mayor, Alireza Zakani, is known as a hardline Iranian politician, who was a member of the Revolutionary Guard’s Basij militia.

The opposition has called for Lahbib's resignation, while extreme-right opposition party Vlaams Belang also asked for De Croo's resignation.

State secretary for external relations of the Brussels government Pascal Smet resigned on Sunday over the all-expenses paid trip.

Reporting by Reuters

The controversy ensued when at the conclusion of talks between bin Farhan and his Iranian counterpart on June 17, the venue of their joint press conference was suddenly changed.

While the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman and the state television insisted that changing the room was "due to a technical problem," Iranian reporters on social media insisted that the Saudi delegation refused to sit in a room where a big portrait of former IRGC Qods Force Commander Qassem Soleimani was posted on the wall. 

Foreign policy analyst Diako Hosseini wrote in a tweet: "The Foreign Ministry should have been intelligent enough to predict the Saudis' sensitivities. Now that the ministry was not intelligent enough, the minister should have cancelled the news conference." 

An Iranian commentator in Paris, Mohammad Javad Akbarin tweeted: "In 2019 Soleimani wanted to bring Syrian Leader Bashar Assad to a meeting with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to attract media attention. Instead, it was [foreign minister] Zarif's threat to resign that became the day's news. Now, the general's picture has undermined all the achievements of the visit by the Saudi delegation. Dead or alive, Soleimani has always brought about a loss for the country's diplomacy and national interests."

Zarif was apparently caught off guard when Assad showed up in Tehran and was not even invited to the meeting with Khamenei.

At the same time, prominent Saudi columnist Mohammed Alsulami wrote in a series of tweets in both Arabic Persian that "Trust between the two countries is fragile and comments made by some political figures close to Iran shows how difficult is rebuilding mutual trust." He further called on Iranians to avoid using sarcastic language about the Iran-Saudi ties as the Saudis are not interested in “factional rivalries in Iran.”

At the same time, foreign policy analyst Ali Bigdeli told Nameh News website in Tehran that "Not all the problems between Tehran and Riyadh will be solved with a visit to Tehran by bin Farhan. He added that "Some Iranian officials have said that America’s hands will be cut off from the Middle east following the agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, but this is not true."

He added: "We still do not have full diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia. The Iranian ambassador to Riyadh has still not received his credentials from the King." He said in another part of his interview that Saudi promises of investing in Iran may not materialize as long as US sanctions against Iran are in place. 

Bigdeli argued that Iran should follow a dynamic policy like Saudi Arabia and maintain healthy ties with both East and West rather than pinning all its hopes on the East. 

Meanwhile, moderate news website Entekhab wrote in a commentary that two years after President Ebrahim Raisi declared Iran's policy of expanding ties with China, Iran's "looking east policy" has not been as successful as Saudi Arabia's relations with China. 

The website wrote that despite signing a 25-year cooperation agreement with China, Iran's share of trade with Beijing only amounted to half a percent of China's international trade in 2022. 

Generally, the total trade volume between Iran and China was less than $16 billion while Saudi Arabia maintained an annual trade of $106 billion with China in 2022, Entekhab maintained. 

The bipartisan bill called Solidifying Iran Sanctions Act of 2023, has the potential to make the 1996 sanctions against Iran – or several other measures -- permanent by deleting the 'sunset clause' in any action against the Islamic Republic, a provision that provides an expiry date for a measure. 

The bill, now heading to a full vote on the House floor, strikes a section from the 1996 legislation that set 2026 as the sunset date, making permanent sanctions against the regime that are designed to slow down research and development of nuclear and biological weapons as well as preventing terrorist actions against Washington and its allies. 

The 1996 law requires the imposition of sanctions with respect to Iran’s illicit weapons programs, conventional weapons and ballistic missile development, and support for terrorism, including Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, read part of the bill. 

"This bill takes the long overdue step of striking the arbitrary sunset from the Iran Sanctions Act, so that sanctions against the regime will only be lifted if Iran stops its threatening behavior," the House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) said. Representatives Michelle Steel (R-CA) and Susie Lee (D-NV) helped bring political support for the Solidifying Iran Sanctions Act (SISA). 

"By making these sanctions permanent, the US is signaling to Iran that we won't tolerate their continued aggression and to our allies that they must also increase their pressure on the [rogue] nation," Steel said. 

"Iran’s evil regime has proven they cannot be trusted to negotiate in good faith," Steel told Fox news, adding, "Only through strength can we show the path to peace, end their brutal attacks on their own people, and prevent a nuclear Iran."

Lee said the bipartisan bill "is one step closer to becoming law and keeping Iran in check," adding, "Regardless of political party, Congress must stand firm against the Iranian regime’s brutal repression of its own people, its funding of terrorism abroad, and its reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons."

The 1996 sanctions are distinct from a series of sanctions that the Trump administration imposed in 2018 and 2019 against Iran's oil exports and international banking. However, Trump based his sanctions partly on the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996. Whether this can potentially hinder any attempts by the Biden administration to reduce the more recent sanctions in a deal with Iran is not clear.

In an interview with Iran International’s Arash Alaei, Representative Keith Self (R-TX) said, "We must deter Iran, first of all, in their nuclear program, as a nuclear war is not something you can even contemplate. And second, we must encourage the Iranian people to rise up against the regime."

Alaei says that Democrats are reluctant to comment on the measures against the Islamic Republic due to a lack of comprehensive Iran policy by the Biden administration. 

Criticizing the Biden administration, Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) told Alaei that reports about impending deals to unfreeze the regime’s assets in Iraq or South Korea indicate that the administration is following a policy of appeasement with Iran, and “all the bad actors” like China, North Korea and Russia. 

“What we shouldn’t do is weaken our position with Iran... we should we projecting strength,” he said. 

Bagheri-Kani confirmed his meeting in a tweet on Wednesday, claiming the two had a “serious and constructive” meeting.

“We exchanged views and discussed a range of issues including negotiations on sanctions lifting,” added the Iranian diplomat.

Mora also confirmed the negotiations saying they were on “a range of difficult bilateral, regional, and international issues, including the way forward on the JCPOA.”

Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian arrived with a delegation possibly including Bagheri-Kani who is also deputy foreign minister in Doha Monday evening and held talks with Qatari officials on Tuesday, in what many believed to be related to issues pertaining to disputes with the United States.

In recent weeks there have been a flurry of reports about direct and indirect talks between Washington and Tehran on the nuclear issue, Americans held hostage in Iran and possibly Iran’s military cooperation with Russia.

Some reports suggest that the US intends to reach an unwritten interim nuclear deal, whereby it offers sanctions relief to Iran in exchange for a freeze on uranium enrichment at 60 percent.