Malley Rules Out ‘Lowering Standards’ Over Iran Sanctions

IRNA quoted “an Iranian diplomat familiar with the process of negotiations” that a text circulated by Enrique Mora, the European Union coordinator of 14-month nuclear talks, would be “acceptable” if Iran had “confidence in various issues, including political claims related to security, sanctions, and guarantees.”

The IRNA story referred to a story published in the Wall Street Journal “a few hours ago” Friday reporting that the text, which the Journal had seen, had offered “a significant new concession to Tehran” over a probe into uranium traces found in Iran in 2019 by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

According to the Journal, the Mora text suggests Iran would need to agree to address the IAEA concerns over the uranium traces before the revival of the 2015 nuclear agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).

While the IRNA story says other issues remain to be resolved – including ‘guarantees’ Iran has sought that the United States honor a revived agreement – it has been widely reported in recent weeks that the IAEA probe, which relates to work Iran carried out before 2003, is a major obstacle.

‘Settled and closed’

IRNA quoted a tweet from a senior official in the presidential office repeating the insistence of President Ebrahim Raisi, made in conversations with the presidents of France, Russia and China, that Iran would not agree to JCPOA restoration without “security claims…settled and closed.”

The US, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom have all argued the IAEA probe, under the agency’s review of Iran’s ‘safeguards’ commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, is unrelated to the JCPOA. But while the Journal’s account says the Mora draft envisages Iran having to satisfy the agency before a renewed JCPOA took effect, it says “other parties in the talks” would then “urge the IAEA Board of member states to close the investigation.”

In 2015, shortly after the JCPOA was agreed by Iran and six world powers, the IAEA published a report, Final Assessment on Past and Present Outstanding Issues Regarding Iran’s Nuclear Programme [sic]. The report both assessed Iran’s pre-2003 work and welcomed the JCPOA, which gave the agency wide powers of inspection that Iran withdrew in 2021 after it began breaching the JCPOA in 2019, the year after the US left the agreement and imposed stringent sanctions.

Uranium traces

The 35-member IAEA board in June passed a resolution, moved by the US and three European states, critical of Iran over its explanations of the uranium traces, which were found by inspectors in 2019 following allegations made by Israel. But while the Journal raised the prospect of the board referring Iran to the United Nations Security Council should it fail to satisfy the IAEA probe, it did not mention Russia and China, who have UNSC vetoes, voting against the June resolution in the IAEA board.

The IRNA story reiterated that Iran continues to review the Mora document. While EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell described it as a “final text,” Iranian officials have said the document is being studied by technical experts before any ‘political’ decision is taken.

The Wall Street Journal quoted a “senior US official” that Washington expected “Iran to provide the agency the information they need… regardless of whether it’s expressed in the text of an understanding or elsewhere.” Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s IAEA ambassador, said in comments published Friday in Izvestia, that with Iran questioning “literally a few lines” he expected the fate of the JCPOA to become clear next week.

A State Department spokesperson reiterated during a briefing that “Iran is preparing to provide Russia with several hundred UAVs, including weapons-capable UAVs,” warning that the US will enforce its sanctions.

Iran did not immediately respond to the statement, but it has never explicitly denied US accusations that it plans to sell military drones to Russia, limiting itself to general expressions of neutrality in the Ukraine war.

Responding to US calls not to provide drones to Russia, Iranian foreign ministry’s spokesman on July 20 said “technical cooperation” with Moscow predated the Ukraine war. “Iranian and Russian technological cooperation predates developments in Ukraine. Any linkage between our cooperation with Russia with developments in Ukraine is intentionally biased.”

But the State Department's warning about enforcing sanctions showed a stiffening of American and possibly European positions on the issue, as an overt supply of Iranian weapons in the Russian invasion would mark the first regular involvement of a country in the conflict on the side of Russia, except Belarus.

“Let me be clear: We will vigorously enforce all US sanctions on both the Russian and Iranian arms trades...including but not limited to Russia-specific authorities and our worldwide nonproliferation sanctions.,” the US spokesperson underlined.

The Biden administration faces a dilemma stemming from Iran’s actions as it tries to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement (JCPOA) by indirect talks with Tehran. If it intensifies its rhetoric and resorts to more sanctions, a new nuclear agreement, already proving to be very hard to achieve, will become even more complicated. If it ignores Iran’s actions, it will come under fire by domestic critics for signing deals with a country behaving aggressively against US interests.

Another complicating factor is Iran’s apparent plots to assassinate former US officials on American soil, which was once again highlighted by the Department of Justice indicting an IRGC operative for trying to hire a hitman to kill former national security adviser John Bolton and possibly former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The Biden administration has strongly condemned Iran’s actions and issued warnings, but it still keeps the nuclear deal on track, separating the issue of Tehran’s malign behavior from its goal of restoring the JCPOA.

At the same time, Iran is driving a hard bargain, slowing the negotiations and extracting concessions.

This policy will make any new nuclear deal achieved with Iran even shakier, inviting rejection by all Republicans and even many Democrats.

In the meantime, Tehran is glorifying its closer relations with Russia, with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in July clearly praising Vladimir Putin’s decision to attack Ukraine.

The quandary the Biden administration faces in trying to deal with Iranian threats and at the same time negotiate for a nuclear deal that would release billions of dollars for Tehran, is apparent from another comment by the State Department spokesperson.

“We remain incredibly concerned about Iran’s use and proliferation of UAVs. They have been used to attack U.S. forces, our partners in the region, and international shipping entities. We will continue to use all available tools, including but not limited to sanctions, to prevent, deter, and dismantle the procurement network that supply UAV-related material and technology to Iran.”

Mohammad Marandi, who acts as de facto spokesman on the talks, referred both to the four-day round of meetings in Vienna that concluded Monday and to earlier rounds. “Iran was able to make significant progress in all fields, which of course will be announced in due course,” Marandi told the Young Journalists Club, a state-owned news agency.

Marandi claimed western journalist had told him that “many government elites of Western countries, as well as Persian-language media people based abroad” also regarded the talks as a success for Iran.

The Vienna talks – largely indirect contacts between the United States and Iran mediated by the European Union – ended with senior EU official Enrique Mora circulating a document designed to bridge remaining gaps. While the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called this a “final text,” Iranian officials treated it as a set of proposals needing further review.

Awaiting ‘high-level meeting’

Nour News, affiliated to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, reported late Wednesday that the text was being analyzed “at the experts’ level,” but had not yet been discussed by a “high-level meeting.” The SNSC, made up of 24 of Iran’s leading politicians and military commanders, shapes policy on the nuclear issue, although crucial decisions may come in informal discussions around Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

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The nuclear talks, beginning in April 2021 in an effort to revive the 2015 agreement (the JCPOA), have wrestled with intertwined political and technical issues – essentially over which US sanctions introduced after Washington left the JCPOA in 2018 contravene the 2015 agreement and how Iran’s atomic program, expanded since 2019, should be returned to JCPOA limits.

Marandi reiterated that Tehran expects the dropping of “false accusations against Iran in the agency,” a reference to enquiries by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) into Iranian nuclear work before 2003. The US and three European JCPOA signatories argue these enquiries arise under Tehran’s basic obligations as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and have nothing to do with renewing the JCPOA.

Iran, on the other hand, argues that the IAEA concluded investigations into Iran’s past nuclear work in 2015, the year the JCPOA was agreed, and revived them only after allegations made by Israel in 2018, the year the US left the JCPOA.

“Let's not forget that before the previous meeting of the Board of Governors [in June, which passed a resolution critical of Iran], the head of the agency, [Rafael Mariano] Grossi, travelled to Israel,” Marandi said.

Iran had promised earlier this year to provide satisfactory answers to the IAEA regarding questions around its past secret nuclear work, but in late May the agency said it had not received convincing explanations.

Guarded comments

In remarks published Thursday on the Rouydad news website, Hossein Maliki, of the Iranian parliament’s security and foreign policy committee, warned that negotiations could be facing a “dead end…because we see less flexibility in the Americans.”

Maliki said he had not seen the Mora text, but his guarded comments – noting Iran’s “positive opinion” on “some provisions” of a “previous text”, an apparent reference to a document circulated by Borrell in late July – suggested he was hedging while long-term JCPOA opponents argued the talks had failed.

The official news agency IRNA reported that Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, in a telephone conversation with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, expressed hope that “the American side, with a realistic and pragmatic view…will provide the ground for an agreement on the final text.”

In a Wednesday interview with Israel’s Channel 13, Tom Nides reiterated Washington’s full support of Israel’s right to self-defense after the latest operation against Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a militant outfit designated a terrorist organization by the US, EU, and UK. Iran also backs the Gaza rulers, Hamas.

“Every option is on the table, as President Biden has said. We’re not going to allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Every option is on the table,” Nides said of the Iranian nuclear threat.

“We support Israel’s right to defend itself, its right to basically take the actions it needs to keep this place safe, so we’re fully supportive of Israel’s actions,” the envoy said.

Israel launched airstrikes against the group on August 5, kicking off three days of fighting, before an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire came into force Sunday night. “These are bad guys,” Nides said referring to the terror groups. “We’re aware of the situation going on in Gaza. We understood this was an important mission for the Israelis.”

Earlier in the week, UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said that she remains committed to standing up to Iranian hostility and their pursuit of nuclear weapons.

"The UK stands by Israel and its right to defend itself. We condemn terrorist groups firing at civilians and violence which has resulted in casualties on both sides. We call for a swift end to the violence," the candidate to becomes the next UK prime minister added.

In a tweet on Wednesday, Florida’s senator Marco Rubio said, “Why is Biden still negotiating with Iran on a new 'deal' when he knows they are actively trying to assassinate former government officials on US soil?

While Iran rejected US accusations of a plot to kill former national security adviser John Bolton, the threat to US citizens can have an impact on nuclear talks as critics question Biden’s reasoning to continue the nuclear talks with the regime in Tehran.

Representative Claudia Tenney (Rep-NY) rebuked the administration for trying to “lift terror sanctions on the IRGC, even though it knew the IRGC was plotting to kill Americans on US soil.”

“The regime in Iran does not deserve nor should it receive a penny in sanctions relief,” she added.

Urging the administration to call off the talks in Vienna until the assassination plots end, former State Department Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said, “Even in light of this, Biden admin “only respond once Iran kills one of our former officials.

“Iranian agents were willing to pay $300,000 to assassinate Bolton and suggested he be run over with a car or shot at short range. Iran planned worse for Pompeo. Iran offered to pay $1 million to kill him, and told their operative a 'long-range capability' was necessary.”

She stressed the need “to kick out the Iranian Interests Section in DC immediately and reimpose strict travel restrictions on Iranian 'diplomats’ in NYC.”