Qatar Pursues More US-Iran Talks After Hostage Release Deal
After US hostages were released this week, Qatar is pressing Iran and the United States to engage in more talks over nuclear and other issues, Reuters reported.
After US hostages were released this week, Qatar is pressing Iran and the United States to engage in more talks over nuclear and other issues, Reuters reported.
Quoting three regional sources familiar with discussions that Doha has held with Tehran and Washington, the effort is aimed at reaching “understandings” to iron out some differences. The aim is to address slowing Tehran's uranium enrichment alongside more international monitoring, curbing activities of Iran's proxy militias in the region and halting Iran's drone exports, all in return for some waivers on US sanctions on Iranian oil exports, the three sources said.
Officials in Doha said Qatari officials would hold separate meetings with Iranian and US officials on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York this week. One source briefed on the talks told Reuters those meetings would include discussing enrichment and Iranian drones.
If there is progress, Qatar aims to host indirect talks between Tehran and Washington, the source said. Qatar helped forge the hostage release deal with shuttle diplomacy between Iranian and US negotiators staying in separate hotels in Doha. The Biden administration agreed to authorize the release of $6 billion in Iranian funds blocked in South Korea since 2018.
Various media have been long reporting about a potential limited and unwritten agreement after formal talks to revive the 2015 JCPOA failed last year. Speculations in this regard became more frequent since June when the US authorized the release of $2.7 billion blocked in Iraqi banks. The Biden administration has played down any prospect of a wider deal, because according to the law, it must report to the US Congress about any nuclear agreement with Iran.
Republicans and some Democrats are becoming more critical of the Iranian regime and the administration’s apparent secret dealings with Tehran. The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the Mahsa Act September 13, which hardened US sanctions against Iran’s ruler Ali Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi.
When the US hostages were released earlier this week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken left the door open to diplomacy on the nuclear file, which he described as "perhaps the number one issue of concern", but said nothing was imminent.
"In this moment, we're not engaged on that, but we'll see in the future if there are opportunities," he said in New York, in his response to a question about whether there could be more indirect talks with Iran soon.
Two Iranian insiders said there would be indirect meetings between Tehran and Washington in New York that could pave the way for talks on a nuclear "understanding". They said Iran had never shut the door to nuclear diplomacy.
Another Iranian insider briefed on discussions so far with Qatar told Reuters: "Considering the upcoming US elections, it is possible to reach an understanding that will involve issuing waivers on banking and oil sectors that would allow Iran to export its oil freely and get its money back via the banking system" - currently barred by existing US sanctions.
This would mean an almost total unravelling of economic sanctions imposed since 2018, while leaving Iran on the nuclear threshold, with more than 100 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent.
The three regional sources said Tehran had already committed to lowering enrichment of uranium to 60% - below the roughly 90% needed for a nuclear weapon - and was ready to resume cooperation with the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which monitors Iran's nuclear work.
However, last week Iran withdrew accreditation to several UN nuclear inspectors, angering the IAEA and Western powers that later issued a statement calling on Tehran to rescind its decision. Iran could be upping the ante precisely because there are behind the scenes talks, to extract maximum concessions.
While Ebrahim Raisi, the man known as the ‘Butcher Of Tehran’ for his history of gross human rights violations, was addressing the UN with an onslaught of regime propaganda including claiming the country is an “unparalleled” beacon of women’s rights, Israel’s ambassador to the UN was physically escorted off site for protesting Raisi’s presence.
Ambassador Gilad Erdan held a poster calling for women’s rights in Iran, showing the face of Mahsa Amini, the face of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement after her death in morality police custody last year, and was forcefully removed from the United Nations by security.
Erdan was the only member of the UN General Assembly to protest. In contrast, in March, more than 100 diplomats from 40 Western countries and allies including Japan walked out of a speech by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to the top UN human rights forum in protest over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The boycott by envoys from the European Union, the United States, Britain and others left only a few diplomats in the room including envoys from Syria, China and Venezuela.
Soon after, in April, the United States, Britain, Albania and Malta walked out on Russia's envoy for children's rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, who the International Criminal Court wants to arrest on war crimes charges, as she spoke by video to UN Security Council members.
Emboldened, Raisi - who as a prosecutor, took part in the 1988 mass executions that killed some 5,000 political prisoners in Iran - told the UN on Tuesday that the United States should prove its "goodwill and determination" to revive Tehran's 2015 nuclear pact as months of indirect talks between the long-time foes have led nowhere. This was after he publicly stated that the US should "stop interfering in the countries of the Persian Gulf and other regions in the world and mind their own business".
Raisi was speaking on the back of a prisoner swap which saw five US convicted Iranians exchanged for five wrongly held US-Iranian citizens, in addition to $6bn in frozen Iranian funds freed up from South Korea.
In a show of appeasement to the barrage of criticism levied to the Biden administration for the deal, which critics say opens the door to yet more hostage diplomacy by Iran, putting further Americans at risk, the administration levied more sanctions on seven individuals and four entities in Iran, China, Russia, and Turkey for their roles in Iran's UAV and military aircraft development.
However, while Raisi was addressing the world’s leaders, Russia’s Defence Minister, Sergei Shoigu, who is in Tehran, announced that “relations between Russia and Iran in the field of defense are developing dynamically. The number of meetings at different levels has increased. The relationship is developing well,” suggesting the $6bn in released funds will be used to fund the regime’s military and nuclear development.
Raisi is reveling in the PR potential of the visit as the world watches. Only Monday, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, he denied sending weapons to Russia, in spite of extensive evidence otherwise which has led to multiple nations including the US and UK, issuing sanctions against Iran.
While the Russian defense minister speaks of burgeoning ties from Tehran, Raisi said from New York, “We are against the war in Ukraine”, while evidence has also shown the two nations building munitions factories together in Russia.
Despite the global backlash for Raisi’s welcome in the UN, the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) has gone ahead with its invitation to meet with him in New York. Iranian actress and rights activist Nazanin Boniadi, a member of CFR, refused to attend the private meeting.
“Some say that these meetings allow us to hold the feet of dictators to the fire, but the past 44 years have shown us that not only are these meetings futile, the Islamic Republic also uses them to legitimize themselves on the global stage,” she wrote on X.
“Continuing the same practices and expecting tyrants to change their behavior seems completely irrational,” she added. “Democratic institutions hold the key to tipping the balance of power in favor of those risking everything for freedom. If you afford your members the opportunity to meet dictators behind closed doors, then at least offer them the chance to also hear from their opponents in the open.”
He avoided the topic of the 2022 anti-regime protests almost entirely and referred to it only indirectly as the West’s worst media assault in history.
Raisi was speaking only a few days after the first anniversary of the killing of Mahsa Amini, which sparked widespread protests across Iran beginning in September 2022.
More than 500 were killed, 22 thousand arrested and at least 7 executed in the brutal crackdown that followed.
“The previous year was a year of victory for the Iranian people,” Raisi claimed brazenly, spinning last year’s events in Iran in the most spectacular fashion.
Images coming out of Iran last week, told a very different story: thousands of armed security forces and plain-clothes thugs had been stationed all over the capital Tehran, in anticipation of protests on the anniversary, intimidating passersby and preventing any gatherings in the streets.
Raisi also lambasted the United States for ‘breaking a promise’ and leaving the JCPOA. He repeated the claim that Iran’s nuclear program is purely peaceful, despite accumulating well over 100 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent.
"The Iranian nation prides itself on playing, thanks to the Islamic Revolution, the biggest role in unmasking the imperialists in the East and West," Raisi said, while the regime has supplied hundreds of kamikaze drones to Russia and exports more than million barrels of oil to China daily at discounted prices.
"The world is transitioning into a novel international order, and the project to Americanize the world has failed," he claimed.
Despite Iran's 12-year involvement in Syria's civil war and supply of weapons to Houthi forces in Yemen, Raisi said, “Our unambiguous position as the Islamic Republic: We do not stand nor support any war anywhere, not in Europe nor anywhere,”
On Monday, the UN nuclear chief said he had asked to meet Raisi on the sidelines of the General Assembly to try to reverse Iran’s decision to remove monitoring devices set up by IAEA and expel “a very sizable chunk” of the agency’s inspectors.
Rafael Grossi, Director of UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, warned that such measures make it impossible for IAEA to verify the nature of Iran's nuclear program.
Earlier on Tuesday, Iranian Americans opposed to the Islamic Republic held a rally ahead of Raisi’s appearance outside the UN headquarters in New York City.
The protesters had banners and posters portraying the Islamic regime's crimes in its 45-year history – including messages targeting Raisi and his role in those crimes.
Raisi was a member of the infamous Death Committee which oversaw summary execution of at least two thousand Iranian political prisoners in 1988.