Iran’s Nuclear Negotiator Confirms European Tour Before Vienna Talks

The comments suggest growing concern over Iran's public rhetoric before indirect talks between Iran and the United States resume in Vienna on Nov. 29.

On Monday, Tehran repeated demands that the United States lift all the sanctions it has imposed since then-president Donald Trump abandoned a 2015 deal between Iran and major powers, and guarantee that it would not quit the deal again.

In a call with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, France's Jean-Yves Le Drian "stressed the importance and the urgency of resuming the negotiations interrupted on June 20 by Iran, on the basis negotiated up to that date, with the objective of a rapid return (to the accord)", a ministry spokesperson said.

Since Trump withdrew from the accord in 2018, Iran has responded to the imposition of US sanctions by breaching the prescribed limits on uranium enrichment, which can be used to make the fuel for nuclear weapons. Iran says its program is entirely peaceful.

Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani, was in Paris on Tuesday as part of a tour to the capitals of France, Britain and Germany, the three European parties to the pact.

Report by Reuters

Reformist journalist, activist and former political prisoner Ahmad Zeidabadi in a sharp article published in Etemad newspaper has reacted to remarks by the spokesman of Iran’s foreign ministry on Monday that one of the three conditions for the United States to return to the nuclear agreement is a guarantee that no future US president will withdraw from the deal.

Iran has been making this demand for a while, but the Biden Administration’s position is that it cannot make decisions for a future president.

Zeidabadi askes Iran’s leaders if they really want the United States to provide such a guarantee. That would mean changing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) into a treaty, which would need approval by the US Senate, where many lawmakers would demand guarantees from Iran on other issues.

This would make the nuclear agreement, a treaty about US-Iran relations in fact, Zeidabadi wrote and expressed doubt if this is what Tehran really wants.

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Not only almost every Republican Senator but a sufficient number of Democrats think the Islamic Republic is a threat to the United States, its neighbors and Israel and they would not approve a treaty unless Iran permanently dismantles its nuclear program in its current form and dramatically changes it foreign policy.

“Is Iran ready to take the needed steps to attract the minimum number of votes in the US Congress?” asks Zeidabadi. President Joe Biden cannot provide a solid guarantee that a future US president will stay in the JCPOA. The most he can deliver “is a verbal” pledge.

The issue of resolving the four-decade old tensions between the Islamic Republic and Iran has always simmered in the background. US presidents have made overtures to Tehran to enter talks to reduce tensions and normalize ties. But Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his hardcore supporters, especially among the Revolutionary Guards have opposed direct talks and improvement of relations. Khamenei only agreed to nuclear negotiations in 2013 after UN nuclear sanctions brought the economy to the brink of crisis.

Zeidabadi further argued that agreements between states last as long as both sides see their interests served. This is the strongest motivation for keeping commitments.

“If the Islamic Republic wants guarantees for the survival of JCPOA after the Biden presidency, it should try to discover shared interests with America and pursue them both within and outside the JCPOA. Such an approach not only would strengthen the nuclear agreement, but it would also make it impossible for a future US president to abandon it,” Zeidabadi wrote.

Quoting British statesman Palmerston, that his country never has permanent friends or enemies but just permanent interests, Zeidabadi argued that if shared interests are not the foundation of agreements, they are not worth the paper there are written on. If deals are made just to put fires out, they will soon break down, he said.

Foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh in his weekly briefing on Monday, said that US officials commenting on Iran’s actions or words should know that the US is not a member of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

He was responding to the latest statement by US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan who told the CNN on Sunday that Iran has not shown a willingness to return to the nuclear agreement.

“The United States should know that it is not a member of the JCPOA and cannot…have demands from JCPOA members. It should first prove its brotherhood,” he said. “We are glad that Americans constantly repeat their intention and will. Perhaps they want to remove all the illegal and extra-territorial sanctions that were imposed by the former US government. But what is important is action,” Khatibzadeh retorted.

Iran accepted indirect negotiations with the US in Vienna within the overall framework of the JCPOA. The talks lasted from April to June, when Iran suspended its participation after the election of its hardline president Ebrahim Raisi (Raeesi). Iran delayed the resumption of the talks for almost five months and only last week agreed to resume negotiations at the end of November.

Khatibzadeh revealed Iran’s new and tougher negotiating posture by claiming that in the first six round of talks “no agreement was reached”, therefore there was never an understanding about a “step-by- step” return to the JCPOA. This argument seems aimed at boosting Iran's demand for a one-step removal of US sanctions.

What Iran has seen from the Biden Administration’s actions has contradicted their declared intentions, Khatibazadeh said and added, “The path for the United States to return to JCPOA is clear. As the party guilty of the current situation, it should retrace its steps from the path it has followed.”

The official news agency IRNA, mentioned the US acceptance of guilt and responsibility as the third condition for its return to the JCPOA.

The foreign ministry spokesman then insisted that sanctions imposed after former president Donald Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018 should be lifted at once, in one step and “what is more important it should provide a guarantee that no future US government” will repeat what was dome in 2018.

Khatibzadeh also announced that Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Bagheri-Kani will travel to Europe at the end of the week to hold talks with members of the JCPOA.

Iran’s posture seems to have hardened recently, demanding that the US should first lift all the sanctions imposed since 2018 before Iran would be willing to negotiate with it. While until June the two sides were discussing a gradual restoration of the JCPOA, Tehran is now signaling “a simple solution”, calling on Washington to just lift all sanctions and provide a guarantee that no future US government would leave the agreement. The Biden Administration cannot provide such a guarantee if JCPOA is not a treaty, approved by the US Senate.

Washington has said its return to the 2015 nuclear deal should be negotiated alongside agreement as to how Iran reduces its nuclear program, which it has expanded and refined since 2019. But Iran seems to be more determined now to get concessions from Washington before a final agreement is reached.

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has directly demanded that the Biden Administration should unfreeze $10 billion of Iran’s blocked funds as a “goodwill gesture”.

Tehran is also trying to isolate the United States arguing that it cannot make demands because it is not a member of the JCPOA any longer. It appears that Tehran wants to negotiate with the three European members of the agreement – the United Kingdom, France and Germany - hoping to extract concessions as a means of pressure on Washington.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi wished Amir-Abdollahian a speedy recovery from Covid-19 and the two sides discussed a range of issues including the upcoming resumption of multilateral nuclear talks in Vienna at the end of November.

Iran’s foreign minister told his Chinese counterpart that he hoped the United States and the three European power, the United Kingdom, France and Germany enter the negotiation “with realism” so that agreement can be reached quickly.

Amir-Abdollahian added that “America cannot continue the failed policy of maximum pressure and economic terrorism while claiming to be in favor negotiations.” He also said Iran’s cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, will continue smoothly “within the framework of agreements and regulations.”

The Iranian foreign ministry statement late Saturday claimed that the Chinese foreign minister said the United States is the main cause of current problems related to the 2015 nuclear agreement, the JCPOA.

This followed the French foreign ministry spokeswoman saying Thursday that Paris was keeping open the option of moving censure of Tehran at the mid-November board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations cooperation and monitoring body.

There had been speculation in September that the United States or Europe might move a resolution at an earlier board meeting critical of Iran, which reduced IAEA access earlier this year after the killing of a nuclear scientist and attacks on its atomic sites.

Nour News, a news website affiliated with the Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani, published a video Saturday dubbed “France and Commencement of Bad Cop Game.”

The video suggested that France had taken up the role in response to "immediate positive reaction of most partners in the negotiations" to Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri-Kani announcing Iran would resume talks in Vienna November 29 aimed at reviving the 2015 deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). Nour described the words from spokeswoman Anne-Claire Legendre as “threatening.”

‘Diplomatic spearhead’

The state-owned, English-language paper Tehran Times on Friday also called France a bad cop. The paper suggested that Iran setting a date for talks had lowered diplomatic tensions and so prompted Paris to “spearhead a diplomatic campaign against Iran.”

"France moved to ramp up diplomatic pressure on Iran by putting more emphasis on the current state of play between Tehran and the UN nuclear watchdog," the paper noted. But it said Paris was unlikely to press ahead with censuring Iran as this “would probably anger Iran at a time when it announced a return to Vienna only grudgingly.”

Mikhail Ulyanov, Russian envoy to the IAEA, poured oil on any troubled waters with a tweet citing the Tehran Times and insisting that "no single participant in the ViennaTalks will do anything that can derail negotiations on JCPOA." Moscow has consistently stressed the importance of the Vienna talks ensuring that both that United States – which left the JCPOA in 2018 – and Iran respect the terms of the agreement.

On Saturday Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian spoke by phone to Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. According to the Iranian foreign ministry, Amir-Abdollahian told Lavrov that talks would make rapid progress once the US and the European JCPOA signatories – France, Germany, and the United Kingdom – ruled out "demands exceeding the JCPOA.” There have been various reports that the US has tried to secure an Iranian commitment to a ‘follow on’ agreement covering regional defense issues.

‘Iran’s full briefcase’

In a commentary headlined "November 29 With Iran's Full Briefcase," Javan newspaper, affiliated with IRGC, argued that Iran was in a stronger position than in 2013, when negotiation began leading up to the JCPOA.

It is widely argued that Iran has been boosted by the failure of US ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions − introduced by the Trump administration in 2018 − to secure their stated aims including Iran ending all uranium enrichment, scrapping missile defense, and breaking links with regional allies.

Javan also pointed out that the Iranian nuclear program had significantly expanded. "Iran is going to sit at the table for talks with full hands," it argued, pointing to its stockpiles of 210kg of uranium enriched to 20 percent and 25kg enriched to 60 percent.

Under the JCPOA, Iran enriched no higher than 3.67 percent, but began exceeding various JCPOA limits in 2019, a year after the US left the agreement. Tehran started 20 percent enrichment in January and 60 percent enrichment in April, explaining the moves as responses to US sanctions, and to the killing of a nuclear scientist and attacks on its atomic facilities widely attributed to Israel, which has opposed the JCPOA.