Iran Has 'Nothing New To Say' About Nuclear Talks

Florida Congressman Ted Deutch said that “Iran threatens our allies and partners, and the IRGC funds proxies across the region while pursuing nuclear weapons”.

“Deal or not, we need a comprehensive strategy to lead in combating threats and to ensure Iran never has nukes”, he added, noting that he is glad that Secretary of State Antony Blinken affirmed that.

During a Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Tuesday, Senators from both sides of the aisle told Blinken to walk away from the talks with Iran.

But Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said Thursday that all the measures the United States has taken against Iran have only accelerated the country’s nuclear program.

The Connecticut senator, a supporter of JCPOA. said in a tweet on Thursday that “We tried crippling unilateral sanctions. We tried assassinations and sabotage. All that did was expedite their research program.”

The Biden administration has been holding talks for more than a year with Iran to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement, but the diplomatic process is at a standstill since March. Iran is demanding the removal of its Revolutionary Guard from the US list of terrorist organizations, something the administration has so far not accepted.

Tehran is due by June 21 to answer concerns raised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over work Iran carried out before 2003 in sites where the IAEA later detected traces of uranium. Some analysts have linked the traces to equipment supplied by Pakistani nuclear scientist AQ Khan.

“We have answered all the questions about the alleged locations,” Mohammad Eslami, head of the Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said. “Negotiations are in progress.” Two meetings had been held, he added, since Iran and the agency in early March agreed the June 21 deadline.

IAEA chief Rafael Mariano Grossi in an interview with Associated Press Wednesday stressed that agency access to Iran’s nuclear program would be enhanced by the revival of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).

Year-long talks in Vienna, between Iran and six world powers, to revive the JCPOA have stalled since March. Grossi told AP that “political circumstance” needed to be overcome if the JCPOA were to be back in place and the previous level of IAEA monitoring restored.

Iran cutback the agency’s access in 2021 following the killing, widely attributed to Israel, of scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, but had since 2019 been expanding its atomic program beyond JCPOA limits in response to the United States in 2018 leaving the JCPOA and imposing draconian sanctions.

The official familiar with the issue told Politico on Thursday that Washington is unwilling to include the removal of the IRGC from the US list of terrorist organizations since it falls beyond the contours of the original 2015 nuclear deal -- formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.

“The US position has been that unless Iran agrees to take certain steps to assuage security concerns beyond the JCPOA, Washington will not lift the terror designation, which itself is beyond the JCPOA,” the unnamed source said.

He added that “the Biden administration is highly unlikely at this point to drop the designation in the context of the JCPOA talks” especially now that the administration is facing bipartisan political resistance at home and “given ongoing threats by the IRGC against [Americans]”.

The agreement that seemed imminent only two months ago hit a few hurdles along the way. First the Islamic Republic demanded that all sanctions – including over its missile and drone programs as well as human rights– be removed, then Russia - an original signatory of the JCPOA — demanded sanctions protections for any future business with Iran following its invasion of Ukraine. However, dropping the terrorist label of the IRGC seems like the tallest hurdle that has run the talks aground.

The International Atomic Energy Agency informed member states two weeks ago that Tehran had moved machines to a more secure setting from Karaj, west of Tehran, where its factory was sabotaged in June 2021 in an attack widely attributed to Israel.

Grossi told Associated Press Wednesday that the new plant, part of the larger site at Natanz where uranium is enriched, reflected the growth in Iran’s nuclear program. “The activity is not new, but the production lines, the production capacities, are being expanded,” he said.

Grossi said Wednesday that “political circumstance” should be overcome for effective UN monitoring of the Iran nuclear program to resume, stressing the agency’s work both in inspecting Iranian atomic facilities and in pursuing answers over past nuclear activities.

While the IAEA is not directly involved in Vienna talks to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), Grossi has made clear the agency’s knowledge and supervision of Iran’s nuclear activities was undermined by the United States in 2018 leaving the JCPOA and Iran’s 2019 decision to reduce IAEA access and break JCPOA nuclear limits.

Tehran is due to satisfy the agency’s concerns by June 21 over work carried out before 2003 in sites where the IAEA later detected traces of uranium.

According to a report in the Washington Free Beacon, a group of Republican Congressmen on the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services Committees wrote a letter Wednesday calling on the United States administration to reveal details of talks in Vienna, which have been paused since March.

"With uncertainty surrounding the status of the negotiation, the American people have a right to know what their diplomats agreed to in Vienna, what alternatives your administration is considering,” they wrote.

The Republicans also demanded the administration reveal how it intended to deal with Iran over other matters, “including its increasingly dangerous missile and drone programs and taking American hostages."

The pause in talks has given ample opportunity for JCPOA critics in both Tehran and Washington. The Republicans have highlighted the prospect that lifting US ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions on Iran in return for Tehran accepting JCPOA limits on its nuclear program would see Tehran repatriate billions of dollars currently frozen by creditors wary of punitive US action.

The Republicans’ letter urged public hearings. "To date only closed-door classified briefings have been provided to Congress,” they wrote. “This is a start, but it is not enough. Special Envoy Robert Malley works for the American people, and he should answer to them.”