US Envoy Malley Traveling To Mideast To Consult Allies On Iran

The stakes are high, since failure in the negotiations resuming in Vienna on November 29 to revive a 2015 nuclear deal would carry the risk of a fresh regional war.

Iran's arch foe Israel has pushed for a tough policy if diplomacy fails to rein in Iran's nuclear work, long seen by the West as a cover for developing atomic bombs.

Tehran denies it has ever sought to develop nuclear weapons and says it is prepared for war in defense of its atomic program.

Iranian hardliners believe that a tough approach, spearheaded by their strongly anti-Western Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, can force Washington to accept Tehran's "maximalist demands", the officials and analysts said.

"Our nuclear facilities are up and running ... We can live with or without the deal... The ball is in their court," said a hardline Iranian official who asked not to be named.

"Progress means lifting all those cruel sanctions ... Iran has never abandoned the deal. America did."

Iran began breaching nuclear restrictions under the pact in response to a decision in 2018 by then US President Donald Trump to withdraw from the agreement and reimpose harsh sanctions that have devastated Iran's economy.

In an apparent bid to pressure Trump's successor Joe Biden to lift sanctions, Iran accelerated those breaches by rebuilding enriched uranium stocks, refining it to a higher fissile purity and installing advanced centrifuges to speed up production.

Dramatically upping the ante, Iran has also limited access given to UN nuclear watchdog inspectors under the nuclear deal, restricting their visits to declared nuclear sites only.

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian tweeted that Tehran was ready "to deliver a good agreement", but some Western diplomats said a deal hinged on Tehran's readiness to show flexibility when the talks resume.

Failure to agree by early 2022, they said, would make the pact's revival less likely due to a key technicality - the longer Iran remains outside the deal, they said, the more nuclear expertise it will gain, shortening the time it might need to race to build a bomb if it chose to.

Kasra Aarabi, senior Iran analyst at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, said by using delays in the talks, advancing its atomic expertise and continuing to support paramilitary allies in the region, Khamenei and his hardline allies were "genuinely convinced they can intimidate the U.S. into granting more concessions without facing any consequences".

FAILURE OR SUCCESS

The fact that indirect talks between Tehran and Washington paused after the June election of hardline President Ebrahim Raisi signaled that the likelihood of failure was greater than chances of success of the negotiations, two Iranian sources close to the country's power center told Reuters.

Ali Vaez, senior Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group, said the negotiations were bound to fail "if Iran's opening salvo is indeed its bottom line".

"By insisting on its maximalist demands, Iran is likely to get neither sanctions relief nor the guarantees it is seeking."

With differences between Tehran and Washington still vast after six rounds of indirect talks on some key issues - such as the speed and scope of lifting sanctions and how and when Iran will reverse its nuclear steps - chances of a deal seem remote.

Iran insists on immediate removal of all Trump-era sanctions in a verifiable process. Washington has said it would remove curbs "inconsistent with the 2015 nuclear pact" if Iran resumed compliance with the deal, implying it would leave in place others such as those imposed under terrorism or human rights measures.

Tehran also seeks guarantees that "no US administration" will renege on the pact again. But Biden cannot promise this because the nuclear deal is a non-binding political understanding, not a legally binding treaty.

The pact, negotiated under former US President Barrack Obama, was not a treaty because there was no way the Democratic president could have secured the approval of the U.S. Senate.

'NOT WORTH PURSUING'

Things are not much better for Biden.

Under the US Constitution, treaties require the consent of two-thirds of the 100-member Senate. Given that it is now split between 50 of Biden's fellow Democrats and 50 Republicans, there is no plausible way for Biden to meet that threshold.

Many Republican senators detest the nuclear agreement and even some Democrats oppose it. However, Rob Malley, the US special envoy for Iran, said last month :"Our intent is to be faithful to the deal if we could get back in."

Eurasia Group analyst Henry Rome said many hardliners in Iran were convinced that, since the deal has failed once, "it's not worth pursuing unless it's fundamentally altered".

Despite US sanctions, China has provided a financial lifeline to Iran by importing supplies of Iranian oil that have held above half a million barrels per day on average for the last three months.

Text from Reuters

“We do not have nuclear talks, because the nuclear issue was resolved in 2015 in the form of an agreement reached between Iran and the P5+1,” Ali Bagheri-Kani, negotiator and a deputy foreign minister, told Iranian state television in an interview from Paris.

The statement is another sign of Iran’s hardening posture. On Monday Iran’s foreign ministry insisted that the US must meet three conditions for the talks to proceed and success. Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told reporters that the US should lift the sanctions “at once”, admit culpability and provide guarantees that it will not withdraw from the agreement again. If these are real negotiating demands and not public posturing, the future of the talk look bleak, commentators in Iranand abroad said.

The Vienna talks aim at reviving the 2015 JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), which limited the Iranian nuclear program and was signed by Iran with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States).

The Iranian lead negotiator's reaction was made one day after French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the talks with Iran must resume where they left off on 20 June by Iran after six rounds of talks with the administration of former President Hassan Rouhani.

Problems had risen, Bagheri-Kani explained, when the US left the JCPOA in 2018 and imposed ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions, which sent the Iranian economy into recession.

"The main issue we are facing now is the consequences of the US withdrawal from the JCPOA, which are limited to the illegal sanctions imposed against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Bagheri-Kani said.

Bagheri-Kani spoke Tuesday evening after a meeting with Philippe Errera, the French foreign ministry political director and lead negotiator. Bagheri-Kani is on a tour of European capitals, which began in Moscow. His remarks came a day after French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the Vienna talks, in which Washington participates indirectly, should resume where they left off on June 20.

Bagheri-Kani described his talk with Errera as “detailed, frank, serious, constructive and forward-looking,” and noted there was a "very good opportunity” to improve relations with France as it prepares for a six-month stint as president of the European Union's Council beginning in January.

In a tweet Tuesday, Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the upcoming Vienna talks would be "a remarkable event after a long (almost 5,5 months) break." Ulyanov said the talks "must be a successful exercise” as there was “no acceptable alternative” to the JCPOA.

China said Monday that the US should rectify its actions in unliterally leaving the JCPOA and so lay the basis for Iran to again accept the JCPOA limits in its nuclear program, which it began exceeding in 2019 in response to US sanction. The official Xinhua news agency cited a Saturday phone call between Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

In Iran, officials have been playing down the importance of restoring the JCPOA. "The JCPOA isn't a priority for our country, and we will not waste all our capacities waiting for the outcome of the [Vienna] talks," said Fada-Hossein Maleki, a member of the parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Wednesday.

Maleki said that Iran needed guarantees that all parties would abide by the agreement in future: "The talks must bear practical and tangible results for us. The Islamic Republic will no longer put all its eggs in the JCPOA basket as it was done during the Rouhani administration [which left office in August]…We will not allow the talks to become attritional.”

The Reformist Front, an umbrella organization that coordinates ploicies among a range of reformist political parties and organizations warned in a statement released on November 7 that "Any delay in returning to the JCPOA will be damaging for the nation's interests."

The statement added that "While expressing serious concern about the way Iran's foreign policy and its nuclear diplomacy is being furthered, we hope that the government would prevent missing the opportunity to end sanctions against Iran and to prevent Iran from lagging behind the quick pace of development in Asia and Iran's neighboring countries."

The statement was issued after Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri-Kani said that talks with the JCPOA partners are going to be resumed by November 29, but the foreign ministry spokesman on Monday issued three conditions the US must meet, including lifting all sanctions in one step and providing a guarantee that future US governments will not withdraw from the deal.

The Reformist Front's statement charged that 15 years ago, Iran's nuclear case was sent to the UN Security Council while Iranian officials chanted revolutionary slogans rather than negotiating with the world. The statement added that the reformists expected the new government and Iran's new political structure, consolidated under conservatives, to pave the way for lifting the sanctions and solving back-breaking economic problems, but unfortunately, one cannot see such an approach being taken.

The reformists further blamed Iranian "radicals" for playing into the hands of the enemies that do not want the sanctions against Iran to be lifted.

Accusing Iran's reformists of "miscalculation" in a commentary on November 9, the IRGC-linked Fars news agency claimed that sending Iran's nuclear case to the UN Security Council was first used as a threat against Tehran when reformists were in power.

Fars further charged that Iran's reformists supported a foreign minister for 8 years who has confessed that he did not know that the word "suspension" was used in the JCPOA rather than "lifting", for sanctions. The website also charged that it was President Hassan Rouhani who accepted the voluntary implementation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Additional Protocol fearing that the United States was about to start a war against Iran. "That was a miscalculation by Iran's reformists," said Fars.

Meanwhile, hardline daily newspaper Kayhan, which is funded by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's office, attacked reformists in a fron-tpage article on November 9 and claimed that the reformists suggest the United States can return to the JCPOA without lifting the sanctions it has imposed on Iran.

Kayhan accused the reformists of distorting the reality and serving the interests of those who have imposed sanctions on Iran. The daily called the JCPOA "nothing but sheer damage."

The daily also accused Iran's reformists of beatifying the United States' hostile acts against Iran and trying to conceal their own footprints in the series of actions that have led to the current situation. Kayhan reminded that reformists told Iranians immediately after signing the JCPOA that sanctions are now part of history. But sanctions were redoubled while the reformists were still in power in Iran. Kayhan also claimed that decisions made by reformists led to the shutting down of Iran's nuclear industry and pouring concrete in the heart of the nuclear reactor in Arak.

"The reformists are to be blamed if the JCPOA has no achievement. But they keep accusing their critics," Kayhan wrote, adding that the reformists criticize lack of development in Iran as a result of attaching priority to the country's military power, but they forget that they have been in power holding key government positions during the past 43 years, including holding the executive body during the past 8 years.

Kayhan expectedly, did not mention that nuclear sanctions have impeded Iran’s economic development and major policies are decided by Khamenei.

Kayhan wrote that the same reformists who are now saying demanding guarantees from the US is impractical, used to say in 2015 when the JCPOA was signed that "The US Secretary of State's signature guarantees that the agreement will work."

"Exchanges on bilateral & regional issues AWA future talks are on the agenda," Bagheri-Kani tweeted. “We shall spare no effort in advancing our national interests incl removal of illegal sanctions.”

France's foreign minister told his Iranian counterpart on Tuesday that when talks with world powers on reviving the JCPOA resume at the end of November, they must continue where they left off in June.

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.

Foreign journalists including the diplomatic editor of Britain's Guardian newspaper had reported earlier that Bagheri-Kani would meet with French, British, and German diplomats, including Philippe Errera, the French foreign ministry political director and lead negotiator, Tuesday and Liz Truss, the United Kingdom’s foreign minister, Thursday.

Saeed Khatibzadeh, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, told his weekly press conference Monday that Bagheri-Kani would visit Paris, Berlin, London, and possibly Madrid.

Tehran had already expressed intention to liaise with remaining parties to the 2015 nuclear agreement, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – China, France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom – before resuming Vienna talks aimed at reviving the JCPOA, which former United States president Donald Trump unilaterally left in 2018, imposing draconian sanctions on Iran.

Bagheri-Kani began is diplomatic tour in Moscow October 29, meeting with the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. Soon afterwards, Bagheri-Kani confirmed the date, November 29, for restarting talks in Vienna.

The administration of President Joe Biden, which has continued Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions on Iran, has meanwhile continued to stress its coordination with Europe, the Sunni-led Arab states, and Israel.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday during a visit to Egypt that the US had serious concerns regarding Iran's “destabilizing influence in the region,” a reference to Israeli and Saudi unease over Iran’s alliances.

Blinken, however, linked this to Biden’s stated commitment to return to the JCPOA, which Israel and Saudi Arabia have opposed. "An Iran with a nuclear weapon would be an even more destabilizing force in the region and beyond,” Blinken said, “which is why President Biden met recently in Rome with his German, French, and British counterparts to discuss how we can work together to get Iran back into compliance with the JCPOA...”

Many US Republicans oppose a US return to the JCPOA and lifting ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions. Congresswomen Claudia Tenney has demanded that Biden “clarify” whether Iran played any role in a recent assassination attempt on Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi. "We shouldn’t be negotiating with a regime that’s actively working to assassinate foreign leaders," Tenney tweeted Monday.

Iran in June interrupted the Vienna talks that had started in April with the indirect participation of the United States.

With US ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions continuing, Iran has accelerated its nuclear program, which began to exceed JCPOA limits in 2019, the year after Trump imposed the sanctions. Iran has also trimmed back monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to that required under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Having survived the US sanctions, many in Iran argue its position has strengthened. Javan newspaper, which is affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards, recentlysaid Iran would be returning to talks with a “full briefcase”, as it had accumulated 210kg of uranium enriched to 20 percent and 25kg enriched to 60 percent. Under the JCPOA Iran enriched to only 3.67 percent.

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