Blinken Says ‘Not Very Optimistic’ Over Iran Nuclear Deal
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told NBC News Wednesday in Brussels he is “not overly optimistic about actually getting an agreement,” in Iran nuclear talks.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told NBC News Wednesday in Brussels he is “not overly optimistic about actually getting an agreement,” in Iran nuclear talks.
Blinken added he believes “it would be in the best interests of our country if we can get back into compliance” with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal “if Iran will do the same.”
Efforts to revive the agreement, which former president Donald Trump abandoned in 2018 prompting Iran to expand its nuclear program, are currently paused. Talks in Vienna have struggled to agree which US sanctions, vastly extended by Trump, violated the agreement and exactly how Iran’s nuclear program, expanded since 2019, should be returned to the limits of the deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).
Blinken stressed Washington’s cooperation with France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, without mentioning China and Russia, also JCPOA signatories and part of the Vienna process.
Asked if Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were a “terrorist organization,” Blinken replied “they are,” but then added he was “not going to get into the details of where we are in the negotiations.” One point reportedly at issue in the Vienna talks is whether the IRGC should be removed from the US list of ‘foreign terrorist organizations,’ where they were placed by Trump in 2019 after introducing ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions. The IRGC are the only example of any state’s armed forces designated in this way and are subject to other US sanctions.
The IAEA reported that the equipment − used to make parts for centrifuges, which enrich uranium − “remained under Agency seal at this location in Natanz and, therefore, were not operating.” Six weeks ago, Iran set up a plant to make parts at Esfahan, another nuclear facility, a move reported to the IAEA in January.
The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), the United Nations nuclear watchdog, had its access to Iran’s atomic program reduced in early 2021. Iran in December agreed to the installation of new cameras at Karaj, after an apparent attack June 2021 widely attributed to Israel. Iran’s security review at the site had threatened a temporary arrangement over monitoring equipment agreed by Iran and the agency in February.
In another area closely followed by the agency, Iran’s nuclear chief Mohammed Eslami said Wednesday that Iran had passed documents to the IAEA related to uranium traces in three sites used before 2003.
Iran and the agency in March agreed a plan to resolve controversy over the traces, which many analysts believe resulted from equipment supplied by Pakistani nuclear scientist AQ Khan. Iran was due to supply answers and evidence by late March, with outstanding questions resolved by June 20.
"We have handed over the documents on March 20 to the agency,” Eslami told a televised news conference. “They are reviewing those documents and probably the agency's representatives will travel to Iran for further talks, and then the IAEA will present its conclusion.”
While the IAEA is not directly involved in Vienna talks between Iran and world powers aimed at reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, it would monitor a revived deal and IAEA chief Rafael Mariano Grossi has made clear the agency would be better placed to access Iran’s nuclear program under powers conferred by the 2015 agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). Grossi said last month he would report on Iran’s answers over the pre-2003 nuclear work to a Board of Governors' meeting beginning June 6.
New complications
With delays in the nuclear talks, both with new complications over with sanctions against Russia and disagreements between the US and Iran, JCPOA opponents in both Washington and Tehran have stepped up their efforts.
Tasnim news agency reported Tuesday that 190 Iran parliamentarians had written to President Ebrahim Raisi urging Iran’s “red lines” and national interest to be upheld. In Washington, Democrat Congressman Josh Gottheimer, among 15 Democrats holding a press conference Wednesday criticizing the Vienna talks, tweeted: “are we seriously going to let a war criminal– Vladimir Putin – be the guarantor of this deal?”
Russia was one of six world powers that signed the JCPOA in 2015. Former president Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and imposed ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions on Iran, which a year later began expanding its nuclear program beyond JCPOA limits. President Biden has expressed commitment to revive the JCPOA but has continued ‘maximum pressure.’
Tasnim news website close to the Revolutionary Guard reported Tuesday that 190 lawmakers have signed the letter and more might join the petition.
While the hardliners’ victory in the 2020 parliamentary election strengthened critics of the 2015 nuclear deal in the 290-seat body, Iran entered talks in Vienna saying that it would agree to restore the 2015 nuclear deal if the United States lifted ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions.
But all along the existing sanctions have been a source of major differences. While the US has agreed to lift nuclear sanctions, Iran has demanded the lifting of all sanctions imposed since 2018, including terrorism-related ones.
The parliamentarians’ letter is one example of Iranian criticism, or wariness, over the talks. Ali Khezrian, a parliament member, has issued series of tweets claiming that a draft agreement discussed in Vienna had abandoned a requirement set by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that the lifting of US sanctions be verified before Iran returned its nuclear program to JCPOA limits.
He cited specific articles of the draft agreement claiming he has access to it, while no one outside the circle of negotiators so far has seen the document. Khezrian claimes that article 5-1 and 5-7 do not fulfill conditions set forth by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Al-Alam, Iran’s Arabic television station, has cited sources that the US had refused to lift the IRGC listing, demanding that Iran first abandon calls for “revenge” – legal or otherwise – for US 2020 killing of IRGC general Qasem Soleimani and insisting that the talks include Iran’s regional role.
‘Cannot be patient for ever’
Delays in year-long Vienna talks between Iran and world powers have given time and opportunity for JCPOA opponents to press their case and make compromises harder.
In a Tuesday editorial Tuesday for its English-language edition, Kayhan newspaper, whose editor Hossein Shariatmadari has for decades opposed nuclear talks, wrote that “Iranians cannot be patient for ever,” and highlighted a call made Monday by foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh for Iran to receive “the economic benefits of the agreement” and for the US to accept talks on an “equal footing.”
Once hardliners won a majority in 2020, Iran’s parliament shifted from a time when President Hassan Rouhani and Speaker Ali Larijani had rallied support for the JCPOA. After the November 2020 killing of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, reportedly by Israel, the parliament passed legislation against the Rouhani government’s wishes requiring reduced cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and uranium enrichment to higher levels.
Once followed by the government, these moves hastened Iran’s expansion of its nuclear program beyond JCPOA limits, which it began in 2019, the year after President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the deal and imposed ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions on Iran.
In the United States, many Republicans and some Democrats have seized on reported discussions over the US removing Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) from its list of ‘foreign terrorist organizations’ and on the prospect that Moscow, now sanctioned by the US and western Europe over Ukraine, would under a revived JCPOA benefit from renewed nuclear-power co-operation with Tehran.
