Tehran News Agency Says Reports About An Imminent Nuclear Deal Not True

“We feel substantial progress has been made in the last week and is continuing to be made,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Friday. She repeated the administration’s position that “If Iran shows seriousness, we can and should reach an understanding on mutual return to full implementation of the JCPOA within days.”

Asked about a letter sent to President Joe Biden by 170 Republican members of Congress questioning the administration’s effort to revive the 2015 agreement, Psaki claimed she does not “have any information on the letter.”

One critic of the policy said, “Biden better start marshaling a strategy because merely being on defense over a mutual JCPOA return is not going to cut it.”

Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Menendez (D-NJ), on Friday repeated his serious concerns about the handling of the talks with Iran he had first voiced on the Senate floor earlier this month.

In a meeting with supporters of AIPAC, a powerful advocacy group for Israel, Menendez said he made his Senate speech because he felt “his colleagues had been focused on other issues in recent weeks … and we are not paying attention to the direction the [JCPOA] talks were taking.”

“The challenges of Iran are clear and present. And so, I wanted to revert the attention of my colleagues … and also send a message to the administration and our allies abroad, for which I’ve had discussions, about what is and is not going to ultimately pass muster here. What can get support and what cannot get support,” he said.

Menendez who opposed the original nuclear deal called, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA, told the AIPAC meeting that “no deal is better than a bad deal,” a refrain that the opponents of the Biden strategy have often declared.

If a new agreement leaves Iran with most of its capability in enriching uranium and its ballistic missiles in place, while lifting economic sanctions, critics say, Tehran would be able to resume its activities in the future and quickly reach a nuclear weapons capability. In the meantime, it will use the financial resources at its disposal to continue its interventionist policies in the region, hinged on supporting militant groups and undermining Western allies.

Israel strongly lobbied the Biden Administration against reviving the JCPOA, which it considers a weak agreement, but has now concluded that “a bad deal” might be inevitable.

The Israeli Channel 13 television quoted an unnamed security officialon Friday that if Israel considered the original deal as a bad one, the revived version taking shape is “spectacularly bad.”

The main reason behind this judgement is that Iran has made a lot of progress in the last few years and has deployed advanced enrichment machines that it can resurrect even if the new agreement puts some sort of limitation on them. Reuters reported on some of the details of the draft agreement under consideration in Vienna, which makes no mention of destroying Iran’s advanced centrifuge machines.

The Biden Administration insists that stopping Iran’s fast advancing uranium enrichment efforts is a priority and the JCPOA is better that having no agreement, which would leave Iran free to pursue nuclear weapons. Critics say the deal from the beginning had sunset clauses that would expire and not restrain Tehran.

“In essence, it is an agreement that leaves Iran as a nuclear threshold state,” Channel 13 said, citing the security source.

"I expect an agreement in the coming week, the coming two weeks or so," the EU official said. "I think we have now on the table text that are very, very close to what is going to be the final agreement," the official said.

Reuters reported on February 17 details of a possible deal negotiated by envoys from Iran, Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany, the European Union and United States.

"Most of the issues are already agreed. But as a principle in this kind of negotiations, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. So we still have...some questions, some of them rather political and difficult to agree," the official said.

The official said a deal was necessary as Iran's sensitive uranium enrichment program was moving ahead quickly. Iran has always denied it is seeking nuclear weapons.

"On the ground they are advancing very much at a speed that is not compatible with the long-term survival of the JCPOA," the official said, referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers is formally titled.

Report by Reuters

Saeed Khatibzadeh, who speaks for the foreign ministry, tweeted that the “final deal to let the US [United States] return to the JCPOA will be far from the unsourced spin making the rounds.” The Reuters news agency report, citing anonymous officials, claimed a series of sequenced steps would be taken in restoring the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), the 2015 nuclear deal Iran reached with world powers.

“Expect more spin as we approach final days,” Khatibzadeh warned. The spokesman pointed out that restoring the JCPOA would not be a bilateral arrangement between Iran and the US, meaning it needed endorsement by all JCPOA signatories – China, France, Germany, Iran, Russia, and the United Kingdom.

Russia's chief negotiator to the Vienna talks, Mikhail Ulyanov, in a tweet Thursday wrote that opponents of restoring the JCPOA were "becoming more proactive in the public space" and "trying to create an unhealthy atmosphere."

Reuters on Thursday claimed that a draft text of a plan to restore the JCPOA included sequenced steps including the US initially withdrawing threats to punish third parties holding Iranian assets and Iran stopping enrichment above 5 percent. The report was unclear as to whether such steps depended on prior agreement on full JCPOA restoration.

Psychological warfare

According to Reuters, the first phase of returning to the JCPOA would not include the US lifting its threat of sanctions against third parties buying Iranian oil but would see this threat lifted against South Korean banks, allowing them to transfer $7 billion owed to Iran. But in accepting that the final agreement was in daft, the news agency effectively accepted that these matters remained under discussion.

Nour News, a website close to Iran’s top security official Ali Shamkhani, earlier on Thursday claimed Reuters was distorting talks in Vienna by suggesting Iran had made major concessions. Tehran would not scale back its nuclear program as long as the US did not lift sanctions incompatible with the JCPOA, the website said, also rejecting Reuters' claim that a prisoner swap was part of the talks.

The US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley said on January 24 that a nuclear agreement with Tehran was unlikely without the release of Americans detained in Iran, but Iran and Russia have insisted that, whatever is discussed elsewhere, the Vienna talks should not be side-tracked.

Iran’s official news agency IRNA reported Friday that the US was putting off political decisions by setting “fake” deadlines and playing games with the media: The "Americans are trying to throw the ball into Iran's court by playing the blame game as the talks in Vienna approach the final stage.” Tasnim News Agency called the Reuters report "psychological warfare."

The draft text of the agreement, which is more than 20 pages long, stipulates a sequence of steps to be implemented once it has been approved by the remaining parties to the deal, starting with a phase including Iran suspending enrichment above 5% purity, three diplomats familiar with negotiations said.

In the draft being shaped oil sanctions are not included in the first phase, which begins with prisoners and cash release as well as a reduction in the level of Iranian uranium enrichment, according to Reuters.

Reuters news agency noted diplomats “citing the now hackneyed principle that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.”

The Russian envoy to the talks, Mikhail Ulyanov told Iran International after the release of the Reuters report that parties would reach agreement "definitely by the end of February." He also dismissed the Reuters reference to a release of prisoners, saying that it was not a part of the JCPOA.

The talks have grappled with reconciling which sanctions the United States would need to remove to return to the deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), and exactly how the Iranian nuclear program, expanded and improved since 2019, would be brought back within JCPOA limits.

But there have also been complex negotiations over ‘sequencing,’ agreeing a timetable as to how and when both the US and Iran would return to the JCPOA, with proposed steps reportedly included in a 20-page draft document on restoring the deal.

Such sequencing, Thursday’s Reuters report suggested, would begin with a phase in which Iran would scale back enrichment to 5 percent from current levels reaching 60 percent, before subsequently returning to the 3.67 percent cap set by the JCPOA.

The text also refers to step-by-step sequencing measures to be taken by the US, including withdrawing threatened punitive action against Korean banks should they release $7 billion owed to Iran for oil exports, sales that were specifically targeted under the ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions introduced by the US after 2018, when President Donald Trump withdrew from the JCPOA.

The steps outlined in the sequencing would lead, Reuters suggested, to what is already being called ‘Reimplementation Day,’ a date by which the JCPOA would be back in place, around one to three months after basic agreement.

But agreement on sequencing depends on agreement on the final goal, and what would be required from both sides to return to the agreement. Hence “now hackneyed principle that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.”

Flexibility, violations

Among the hardest issues to resolve are Iran’s use of more advanced centrifuges than permitted under the JCPOA, with Tehran arguing for flexibility – effectively an amendment to the 2015 agreement – given attacks, widely attributed to Israel, that have decommissioned older machines.

Iran has also asked for guarantees that the US will not once again leave the JCPOA. A Middle Eastern diplomat and an Iranian official told Reuters Iran had suggested that the JCPOA be amended to state that if the US again deserted the JCPOA, Tehran could resume enrichment up to 60 percent within the terms of the agreement.

A further complication is judging which US sanctions do and do not violate the JCPOA – a matter complicated by the Trump administration introducing sanctions on other grounds while suggesting this was a means to complicate efforts to renew the JCPOA. Tehran also points to general provisions in the 2015 agreement acknowledging its general right to pursue trade and attract investment.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has been among those this week saying only days remained for the talks to achieve their intention. Iran has kept up its calls for ‘guarantees’ and continued to insist it will not meet face-to-face with the US until Washington returns to the JCPOA.

"My criticism regarding the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) was that certain points had to be included to prevent problems from occurring in the future,” Ali Khamenei said in a speech video-linked to an audience in East Azarbaijan province.

Khamenei did not explain this advice but probably referred to his argument, first made in public in 2016, that the United States was not carrying out commitments to lift sanctions as required by the JCPOA. The leader’s speech also relates to Iran’s search in Vienna talks over reviving the JCPOA for US assurances that they will not again leave the deal as President Donald Trump did in 2018.

When Donald Trump won the 2016 US presidential election, calling the JCPOA “the worst deal in history,” and suggested in 2017 he would withdraw the US, Khamenei continued to express skepticism. In speeches in 2018 and 2019, he said he had warned the Rouhani administration of dangers in the JCPOA talks, but given the power structure in the Islamic Republic, every significant decision during talks with the West had to be cleared with Khamenei’s office.

In an interview with the Financial Times published Wednesday, Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Tehran had proposed that the US Congress declare its commitment to a revived JCPOA as way to offer Iran guarantees over US intentions.

Agreement ‘non-binding'

With both Iran and the Biden administration this week signaled that Vienna talks to restore the 2015 deal might be nearing an end, opposition to the JCPOA in both the US and Iran remains live.

An overwhelming majority of Republican lawmakers in the US House of Representatives bluntly rebuffed the suggestion of a Congressional guarantee over the JCPOA. Nearly 170 House members Wednesday sent a letter to President Joe Biden saying they view "any agreement" reached in Vienna not approved by the US Senate as "non-binding,” even if like the JCPOA ratified by the United Nations security council.

With this clear warning displayed on the billboard, if Khamenei allows an agreement in Vienna, the potential mistake could be worse than with the original JCPOA agreement. In 2015, there was more certainty that an agreement will stick, although there was some Congressional opposition. This time, Iran, including JCPOA opponents, are well aware that Republicans have a fair chance of winning majorities in Congress in November and perhaps the presidency in 2024.

Khamenei gave no indication in his Wednesday speech as to whether he thought a revived deal, restoring limits on Tehran’s nuclear program, was likely.

Hadi Moosavi, an Iranian journalist apparently living outside Iran, tweeted that Khamenei was "again" trying to protect himself by casting the blame on others. "So, what's the Leader's duty? It is against his legal and religious duties if he just sits there and says, 'I had said so'. I wish he would say what exactly was not heeded so we would know whether the current negotiation team is heeding them or not," Moosavi opined.

Khamenei in his speech argued that Iran needs civilian nuclear power for the future, but such a program would not need domestic uranium enrichment, as supplies are abundant on the world market. Russia already helps Iran maintain its power plant in Bushehr and has signed agreement to add new reactors. The Bushehr power plant has not been questioned by the United States and European powers.