Iran Says Draft US Law Might Undercut Nuclear Talks

In his weekly press conference, foreign ministry spokesman Naser Kanaani was asked about reports that Iran might sell military drones to Russia for its war effort in Ukraine, which he did not deny. Instead, he said, “Iranian and Russian technological cooperation predates developments in Ukraine. Any linkage between our cooperation with Russia with developments in Ukraine is intentionally biased.”

He went on to reiterate that Iran pursues “political solutions for this crisis.”

The US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan recently said that Russian officers visited Iran in June and July to review possible drone purchases.

US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley told CNN on Tuesday that any drone shipment from Iran was “of course of concern” and would “bolster Russia’s ability to wreak havoc.” He said it “speaks volumes” that Iran would be in a position where it sold drones to Russia “against its professed position of neutrality in the conflict.” Without giving details, Malley said the US would “use the tools at our disposal” to sanction any supply of weapons to Russia.

Kanaani in his briefing said, however, “Russian and Iranian ties are bilateral, based on the interests of the two countries and do not concern the American government, which cannot comment about the relationship.”

Kanaani also said that he cannot confirm if Ukraine was discussed between presidents Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iran Ebrahim Raisi when they met in Tehran on Tuesday, although “naturally international issues are discussed in multilateral meetings,” he added.

However, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in his meeting with Putin clearly backed Russia’s “initiative” in attacking Ukraine, saying that if Moscow had not taken that step, NATO would have started a war anyway.

“Nato is a dangerous creature,” Khamenei said, “[that] didn’t recognize any limits or borders. If you cannot stand up to them in Ukraine, then a little while later, with the excuse of Crimea, they would have started this war anyway,” Khamenei told Putin.

Speaking about Iran’s talks with the United States to restore the 2015 nuclear agreement known as JCPOA, Kanaani rejected US statements that the latest meeting in Doha in June failed. “As a matter of fact, these were good talks,” he insisted.

He went on to speak with optimism that the diplomatic process is well and alive and the European Union is pursuing discussions with the two sides.

Kanaani reiterated Iran’s position that it needs “serious guarantees” about the US commitment to a new agreement and “verification” that Washington carries out its obligations.

Eleven months of talks in Vienna to revive the JCPOA came to a stop in March as Iran demanded the lifting of all sanctions introduced by the US after former President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement in 2018.

Kanaani also repeated remarks by Khamenei and Raisi on Tuesday that the United States should withdraw its troops from Syria.

In an interview with CNN, Malley, the United States special envoy for Iran, said, “It can opt for a position of relative dependency on Russia, which itself is isolated internationally…or it can choose to come back into the deal that’s been negotiated...and have normal economic relations with its neighborhood and with Europe and the rest of the world.”

The special envoy suggested that not “getting back into the deal” would mean Iran “having to turn to Russia, having to sell on drones to Russia, a choice that is not a particularly attractive one…”

The US recently alleged that Russian officers visited Iran in June and July to review possible drone purchases. Malley said any drone shipment from Iran was “of course of concern” and would “bolster Russia’s ability to wreak havoc.” He said it “speaks volumes” that Iran would be in a position where it sold drones to Russia “against its professed position of neutrality in the conflict.” Without giving details, Malley said the US would “use the tools at our disposal” to sanction any supply of weapons to Russia.

Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, meeting President Vladimir Putin, gave Tuesday the clearest expression yet of support for Russia over Ukraine, which had “taken the initiative” while “the other side, with its own initiative would have created a war anyway.”

But Russia and Iran have long had some military cooperation, especially supporting President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, during the operation of the 2015 nuclear deal (the JCPOA, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) until President Donald Trump withdrew the US in 2018, prompting Iran to begin exceeding JCPOA limits in 2019.

Malley again called Trump’s decision to leave the agreement “catastrophic,” while reiterating that the onus to revive the JCPOA, which has been the subject of year-long negotiations between Iran and world powers, lay in Tehran.

‘A few weeks’

Malley dismissed a suggestion Iran might be responding to US actions, being pushed towards Russia for example not just by US ‘maximum pressure’ but by Biden’s statement during his recent trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia that the US would not leave a regional “vacuum” to be filled by Russia, China, and Iran.

Iran’s leaders have argued with President Joe Biden continuing Trump’s sanctions, has refused as part of JCPOA restoration to lift them all, including listing Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a ‘foreign terrorist organization,’ and to give assurances it would not impede Iran in benefiting from the agreement.

Malley refused to give a deadline for JCPOA talks.He said Tehran was “a few weeks” from creating enough fissile material for a bomb, “if it chooses to enrich at that level,” although the weaponization “would take longer.”

“Every day” made JCPOA restoration and the return of Iran’s nuclear program to a “safe box” less likely, Malley argued. Terms for reviving the deal had been agreed, he suggested, by all parties in talks other than Iran – including Russia as well as the US, China, France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

A brief overview of Rouhani’s remarks were carried by Aftab News website in Tehran.

Rouhani who was meeting with former officials and aides in his office in Tehran on the occasion of Eid Ghadir, said his administration could have removed US sanctions in 2021, in the Iranian month of Esfand (February 21-March 20). He added that “unfortunately” the parliament passed the ‘Strategic Action to Eliminate Sanctions and Defend Iranian Nation's Interests’ bill on December 1, 2020,

The bill, adopted by the hardliner-dominated parliament, boosted uranium enrichment, limited nuclear inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), demanding the removal of all sanctions.

The February-March date Rouhani mentioned as the time when his administration could have lifted United States’ sanctions predates the start of negotiations on April 7, 2021, in Vienna to revive the 2015 nuclear deal known as the JCPOA.

If Rouhani’s claim is true, it means that his government had already reached an agreement with President Joe Biden’s administration, which had just assumed office, which in turn could mean that some sort of negotiation might have taken place even before Biden took office.

The parliament’s bill that Rouhani referred to was adopted as a reaction to the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh a few days earlier, presumably by Israel, but in fact the outlines of the law had already been proposed on November 4, one day after the US presidential election.

During Rouhani’s eight-year, two-term presidency, hardliners loyal to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei persistently criticized him for the talks that led to the signing of the JCPOA in 2015, although without Khamenei’s blessing no agreement would have never materialized.

The criticism continued and intensified after former President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement in May 2018 and imposed sanctions on Iran.

With the election of hardliner Ebrahim Raisi in June 2021, Iran suspended the Vienna talks for five months and when they resumed in November an agreement remained elusive until another suspension in March 2022, which still continues. The prospects for a deal have diminished, as Iran demands the removal of all post-2018 sanctions, including terrorism-related designations.

Rouhani has rarely responded to criticisms by hardliners over the nuclear issue and Iran’s economic crisis since he left office in August 2021.

Although some ‘reformist’ and former politicians and even senior clerics call for an agreement to lift the sanctions and ease hardship for the people, no one dares to say that Khamenei makes all decisions over key foreign policy and nuclear issues.

Rouhani told his former colleagues during the Friday meeting that he hopes the negotiations to revive the JCPOA will succeed. He added, “We have many enemies in the world and in the region and internal disagreements and divisions is not in the interest of anyone. We all have to help the government.”

On July 17, Kamal Kharrazi, a senior adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had said Iran has the technical capability to build a nuclear bomb.

The Republican senator from Iowa told Iran International’s Arash Aalaei on Monday that "I believe his comments should be a wake-up call for President Biden's administration and for the rest of the Middle East.”

About the bicameral effort to create a united front against “Iranian aggression” in the Middle East, she said, “I have the DEFEND Act which will bring the Abraham Accords countries together, some of our other partners, friends and allies in the region, and provide a collaborative effort to provide a protective defense against Iran.”

The Deterring Enemy Forces and Enabling National Defenses (DEFEND) Act is a joint effort by Congress to develop a strategy for signatories of the Abraham Accords and other countries to combat Iranian destabilizing activities threatening peace and security in the Middle East. 

CENTCOM Commander General Michael Kurilla and IDF Chief of Staff Lt General Aviv Kochavi discussed on Sunday, July 17, “the importance of an integrated air and missile defense system.”

“It's very worrisome that they have the technology and they can move forward so quickly. So, we need to be aware of this and we need to know and understand that Iran is never going to operate in our best interest," Ernst noted. 

Mohammad Marandi, who was a member of Tehran’s team in the Vienna nuclear talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal known as JCPOA, was quoted by Rouydad24 website in Iran as having told Sputnik, that reports by Western media about the demand to remove the Revolutionary Guard from the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) is not true.

“This issue was never a pre-condition…What has been on the table is the [US] track record in partial implementation of the JCPOA and its ultimate violation. Iran deems this unacceptable and Washington’s unwillingness to remove sanctions,” Marandi was quoted as saying.

The Sputnik website is not accessible in most countries after the invasion of Ukraine and Iran International cannot verify Rouydad24’s exact quotations, but a website in Iran would hardly dare to be inaccurate in reflecting the words of an important official.

Meanwhile, Mohammad Kowsari, an IRGC officer and an influential member of parliament said Monday that, “It would not be acceptable at all that the Guards…remain under sanctions.” He also demanded “guarantees” that “all sanctions be removed” and rejected any notion of a selective approach in the matter.

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Kowsari went on to accuse the US of using the issue of IRGC’s terror designation to refuse providing “permanent” guarantees to Iran. “At least there should be guarantees for the two remaining years of the Biden administration,” he said.

After the Vienna talks stalled in March, reports emerged that Tehran was demanding the delisting of the IRGC and Washington’s position was that the issue was not related to nuclear sanctions, which it had agreed to suspend or remove.

Lately, the issue of guarantees is again being raised by Iran, which if applied to assurances for full economic and financial access by entities sanctioned for terrorism or human rights violations, basically means the removal of all sanctions.

US administration officials and President Joe Biden himself have said that a final offer has been made to Iran months ago and it is up to them to decide. At the same time, during his trip to the Middle East last week Biden pledged bot with Israel and Saudi Arabia not to allow Iran to become a nuclear weapons state.

Marandi went on to argue that the United States is in not “in a strong position to act against Iran,” and the best option for them is to come to an agreement to unlock Iran’s oil flow, which they need.

The US-born Iranian official who plays a role in reflecting Iran’s positions in English language with international media, also spoke about reports about the creation of an air-defense alliance between Israel and Arab states concerned about Iranian missile and drone threats. He reportedly told Sputnik that even if such a system is set up it cannot pose a challenge for Iran.

“There is no regional country that can be considered Iran’s rival. Our only rival is America. Israel and Saudi Arabia are small and weak. Iran is the most militarily advanced country in West Asia,” Marandi claimed.