Iran Counted On A Russian Victory in Ukraine, Pundits Say

Iran on Monday was in a total confusion, as it was not clear if Ramadan ended or not, and if there was a public holiday. The foreign ministry did not hold its weekly press briefing.

Western diplomats told the Wall Street Journal on Sunday that the EU is offering to send its top negotiator Enrique Mora to Tehran again to persuade Tehran to show flexibility.

Mora, the senior EU official chairing the Vienna process, has told Iranian negotiators he is ready to return to Tehran to open a pathway through the deadlock, diplomats told the Wall Street Journal. Mora failed to convince Tehran to return to the talks during his March 27 visit.

Talks in Vienna to restore the 2015 nuclear deal, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), have been in limbo since mid-March when Iran insisted that its Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) be removed from the US list of terrorist organizations. The US has not agreed to the demnd.

Reuters reported on Monday that the West has almost given up on the process and is contemplating what to do next.

"They are not yanking the IV out of the patient's arm ... but I sense little expectation that there is a positive way forward," one source, who like others quoted spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitiviy, told Reuters.

Western diplomats told the Wall Street Journal that they want to put the onus back on Tehran, making it clear the talks could fail unless Tehran took a step to end the stalemate. Mora, they said, will try to persuade Tehran to leave the issue of IRGC's delisting to a future point and sign off on the deal now. Tehran has so far not responded to the proposition, the report said.

In a phone talk with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian's on April 20, the EU foreign policy Chief, Josep Borrell expressed frustration over the pause in the talks and called for fresh contacts between Enrique Mora and Iran’s lead negotiator Ali Bagheri-Kani.

Iran insists that it will not give up on its demand for the removal of the IRGC from the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO), calling it a 'red line' it will not cross at any cost

The Biden administration is adamant that it will only negotiate the delisting of the IRGC if Tehran also agrees to discuss other issues which are important for Washington, presumably Iran's aggressive regional policies and support for militant groups, which are also outside the JCPOA purview.

Despite the deadlock in the talks that appears to have much to do with the IRGC regional activities and pledge to take revenge on American officials for ordering the targeted killing of Ghasem Soleimani, officials in Tehran have shown no signs of softening their rhetoric in the past few weeks

Soleimani, commander of the Qods (Quds) Force, the IRGC's extraterritorial arm, was killed in a drone attack in Baghdad in January 2020 on Trump's orders.

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.

US Democratic Senator Bob Menendez (NJ) reiterated Sunday that no nuclear deal with Ian was better than a bad deal. “It’s 2022. It's not 2014. Some of the original deal sunsets are even closer… to ending a pathway where Iran could ultimately achieve its goal,” a reference to the belief that Tehran is bent on producing nuclear weapons.

Menendez said on Sunday that, “It’s 2022. It's not 2014. Some of the original deal sunsets are even closer… to ending a pathway where Iran could ultimately achieve its goal,” a reference to the belief that Tehran is bent on producing nuclear weapons.

His remarks came as negotiations between Tehran and world powers seem to have come to a dead end while the European parties are making a fresh push to revive the talks.

According to Western diplomats close to the talks, the European Union coordinator of the negotiations, Enrique Mora, has told Iranian counterparts he is ready to return to Tehran to open a pathway, hoping to break the stalemate.

The negotiations, which started in Vienna in April 2021, have been on a protracted pause since March 11, as the Islamic Republic demanded removing Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) from the US list of terrorist organizations.

Western and Iranian officials said the text of the nuclear deal was virtually complete and technical issues have been resolved but political issues have remained.

There is bipartisan opposition in Washington and anger among the US Middle Eastern allies over the prospect of the terrorist designation being removed.

The US says the only way it would take that step is if Iran is ready to discuss issues related to its role in the region.

Jahromi told IRNA on Sunday that, "We currently have nothing new to say about the Vienna Talks" to restore the 2015 nuclear agreement between Tehran and the world powers.

He made the remarks as reports say the Unites States is getting closer to admitting the failure of the talks while many US lawmakers are calling on the administration to walk out of the talks.

Apparently implying that the nuclear talks are not the Iran’s top priority, he said, “Negotiations are one of the current issues on the table of the Islamic Republic along with other issues in the international arena”.

“Iran will never back down from international diplomatic mechanisms until it fully and comprehensively protects the rights of the nation”, Jahromi added.

Negative news on the talks would be very harmful to the government’s effort to defend the battered currency, rial, which is close to its all-time low against major currencies. Annual inflation, already above 40 percent, could completely get out of hand if the rial crosses the 300,000-rial threshold against the US dollar. It currently trades around 280,000.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman last Monday called for some sort of renewal of the nuclear talks, telling the public that Europeans, Russia and China have no objection to an agreement and only Washington is delaying the process.

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.