Iran Readies Response To European Nuclear Proposals

There was no mention of the nuclear deal, the JCPOA, in the official readout of the cabinet meeting, and state agencies reported that President Ebrahim Raisi only talked about the "discourse of resistance" as the only effective way to tackle problems facing the Islamic World.

‘Resistance’ is a label Tehran uses to refer to its allies and proxies in the Middle East who follow its foreign and regional policies.

Referring to August 14 designated as the “Day of Islamic Resistance” in the official calendar of the country, the president praised the concept of resistance in confronting “world arrogance”, an expression the Islamic Republic uses to refer to the United States. 

As the European Union submitted a final take-it-or-leave-it proposal to restore the Iran nuclear deal, some reports say Iran is unlikely to agree to a return to the JCPOA. 

The new text reportedly includes guarantees that foreign companies will be able to invest in Iran or operate there once sanctions are lifted, without fearing the repercussions of any party withdrawing from the deal, as the United States did in 2018 under President Donald Trump, but Tehran demanded more drastic concessions outside the scope of the original agreement, including over an International Atomic Energy Agency probe into undeclared nuclear material found in the country.

In an interview with TASS published on Sunday, Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s permanent representative to the international organizations in Vienna, said, "In the event of favorable development of events the final agreement may be reached as early as next week."

Underlining that EU coordinators have made several amendments to the text that is on the table now, Ulyanov noted that "However, it is possible if all countries participating in the Vienna talks agree with the version of the text provided by EU coordinators on August 8. If amendments, objections appear it is difficult to project further developments now. We have to wait for the beginning of next week.”

Emphasizing that the current text is “not an EU text,” he explained that it is developed by all participants of the talks that have been underway since April 2021. 

He reiterated that the US has apparently agreed, whereas Iran has not yet defined its position on the text, which is why “I will not speculate on what issues Teheran may still have. As coordinators, the EU’s representatives may offer compromise options, which they did.”

Conflicting messages came at the end of the latest round of Vienna talks to salvage the 2015 nuclear pact, which concluded on August 7 after 16 months of negotiations, as Ulyanov expressed optimism, the US envoy Rob Malley was quoted as voicing disappointment, and Tehran urging Washington to be flexible. 

President Ebrahim Raisi appointed Eslami to his current position in 2021 amid pressure by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regarding uranium traces found at three nuclear facilities used prior to 2003 when Iran’s nuclear program was secret.

The source who is familiar with the inner workings of AEOI told Iran International that Eslami has the task of erasing the traces of suspicious nuclear activities of the Islamic Republic.

There is reason to believe that the three sites were not only used prior to 2003, but also much later.

Eslami had served as Minister of Roads and Urban Development in the former government and his appointment as nuclear chief surprised many. For the younger generation, the former official’s background seemed unrelated to his nuclear post. 

However, a look at Eslami’s resume shows that he played a crucial role in the most critical stages of Tehran’s secret nuclear projects. 

Between 1987 and 1989, an envoy from the Ministry of Defense traveled to Dubai to meet Abdul Qadeer Khan, a Pakistani scientist who sold nuclear knowledge and enrichment equipment to the Islamic Republic. 

Years later, Abdul Qadeer Khan confirmed the deal with the Islamic Republic in a television interview. 

The source with links to the Iranian Organization of the Defensive Innovation and Research (SPND) said, that the mission to Khan was carried out under the supervision of an office headed by Mohammad Eslami.  

In a chart leaked from nuclear documents stolen from Iran by Israel, the role of Mohammad Eslami is prominent. As the head of the Defense Industries Educational and Research Institute, he was involved in all aspects of Iran's secret nuclear program that grew into various branches over the years. 

One of the most important of these was the Amad project, the Islamic Republic's plan to build an atomic warhead that was pursued under the supervision of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran's prominent nuclear figure and was stopped in 2003 when it was revealed or leaked. 

Fakhrizadeh was assassinated in November 2020, reportedly by Israel in a complicated operation resembling Hollywood thrillers.

The source in SPND said the supervisor of this project was Eslami, and the funds allocated to these programs were spent directly in line with Mohammad Eslami's discretion. 

With the closure of the "Amad" project, Iran's secret nuclear projects continued in a new organization, the SPND. 

For two years after the signing of the JCPOA, Eslami was the deputy of industrial and research affairs of the Ministry of Defense and a member of Iran's nuclear program. 

 An office mentioned in the nuclear administrative chart of the Islamic Republic is of particular interest. The Orchid Office is an important center in Iran's program to acquire nuclear weapons, according to our source. A building on Orchid Street in Pasdaran district, Tehran, is where major contracts are signed was managed until two years ago by Eslami until Fakhrizadeh was assassinated. 

SPND was the center where Fakhrizadeh was pursuing his unfinished plan for the Amad project on a separate budget line.

The United States has sanctioned SPND exactly for its secretive nuclear work.

The two nuclear sites of Sorkh-eh-hesar, [Tehran], and Marivan near Abadeh, Fars Province, were given to SPND so that Fakhrizadeh could pursue his plan to produce nuclear weapons with the cooperation of Saeed Borji, an expert in atomic explosions. 

However, by looking at the history of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, each of the heads of this organization was appointed out of a specific necessity. 

During the years when the secret nuclear program was pursued in the Ministry of Defense, Reza Amralahi was the head of the organization. 

With the development of this program and the need to build and equip extensive facilities such as Natanz, in Esfahan Province, Gholamreza Aghazadeh became the head of the organization. This former oil minister had the power to inject cash into Iran's nuclear program. 

His strong disagreement with then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad led Ali Akbar Salehi to become the head of the organization. Salehi who was Iran’s former representative at the IAEA took the helm of the Atomic Energy Organization when the negotiating team when the UN Security Council was issuing sanction after sanction against Iran in early 2010s. 

With the assassination of nuclear scientists and under the pressure of the Revolutionary Guards, Fereydoun Abbasi became the head of the Atomic Energy Organization, who himself had survived an assassination. 

Although years later, in an interview with the Ensaf News website, which was deleted after publication, a security official considered his assassination suspicious and raised the possibility that he was a spy. Abbasi was one of Fakhrizadeh's colleagues and one of his vociferous opponents and rivals. 

When the JCPOA’s time arrived, Salehi returned to the AEOI as a scientific figure. 

With the election of Raisi in the most engineered election in the history of the Islamic Republic, Eslami is the repository of Islamic Republic’s nuclear secrets and was appointed as the best suited person in the post of nuclear chief to eradicate all traces. 

He announced August 1 that the Islamic Republic had achieved the ability to build nuclear weapons.

During his one-year tenure, Iran has hardened its position not to provide further explanations to the IAEA on past nuclear work and Eslami has turned off most of the international watchdog’s monitoring equipment in Iran’s nuclear facilities. 

He seems to be a man who has returned to Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization to clear his and his colleagues’ footprints on the secret part of Iran’s nuclear program. 

Meanwhile, a prominent academic and ‘reformist’ analyst in Tehran said, "Iran's hardliners do not want an agreement, they simply want a respectful exit from the JCPOA." As though confirming this view, Noor News, a website close to Iran's Supreme Council of National Security, dismissed optimism in Europe and America about an imminent agreement.

Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, the former head of the Iranian Parliament's Foreign Policy and national Security Committee wrote in a commentary on Didban Iran [Iran Monitor] website that "Tehran and Washington are trying to blame each other for the failure of the nuclear negotiations and declare an end to diplomacy."

The conservative politician added that the only possibility for the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal depends on whether Iran and the United States are committed to a long-term understanding in their relations.

In a rare clarity from a commentator in Iran over the nuclear issue, Falahatpisheh maintained that Iran should create a meaningful distance between its nuclear capabilities and the time when it can make a bomb. This will help the United States to convince its regional allies including Israel about the usefulness of an agreement. At the same time, Washington should undertake to protect Iran’s economic and trade ties once a deal is signed.

Falahatpisheh added that even Raisi's opponents in Iran do not agree with a deal that would compromise Iran's nuclear achievements, meaning its Uranium enrichment capability.

The commentator said, however, that the Supreme Council of National Security, which is reviewing EU's proposal for a deal, should not accept it if it cannot be practically implemented. "Iran should not compromise its achievements and should only accept a comprehensive deal," he said. Falahatpisheh added that even if Iran rules out the EU proposal, Tehran and Washington can still work out an "oil for inspection deal" with the purpose of confidence building. He said such a deal would be based on a partial lifting of US sanctions.

Meanwhile, in an interview with the government-owned semi-official news agency ISNA, hardliner commentator Abbas Salimi Namin claimed that nuclear accusations against Iran that hinder an agreement are mainly fabricated by Israel and some Iranian opposition groups.

Salimi Namin also repeated Iran’s demand that the new agreement should contain a mechanism that would prevent a US withdrawal in the future. Without that mechanism, naturally, Iran will not welcome the proposal," he said.

Salimi Namin tried to reassure JCPOA member states that ultimately once the highest authority in Iran agrees to a deal, it will be final. He pointed out that "despite the harsh criticism of the JCPOA in Iran in 2015, no one tried to put an end to the deal. "

Reformist analyst Sadeq Zibakalam told Khabar Online website that Iran's hardliners want a decent exit from the JCPOA rather than an agreement with the United States. He said Iranian negotiators and officials set meaningless and impossible conditions for an agreement hoping that no deal would be reached.

One such instance is Iran’s demand for the West to guarantee an economic windfall from a nuclear deal, Zibakalam said. This depends not only on the JCPOA but also Tehran’s change of behavior and relations with its neighbors, otherwise not many companies would be willing to deal with Iran.

Last Monday Enrique Mora, the EU official coordinating talks, presented a text aimed at overcoming obstacles to renewing the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). Iranian officials have said the text is under review in Tehran.

Malley, the White House special Iran envoy, acknowledged to NPR that EU mediators, who have chaired talks for over a year, believe negotiations have “exhausted their usefulness.”

“We’re considering the text very carefully to make sure it lives up to the president’s very clear guidance that he would only sign up to a deal…consistent with US national security interests,” Malley said.

Malley was pressed over reports the US has signaled willingness to rule out punitive action against non-US companies dealing with Iranian entities linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). This has been reported as a potential compromise consistent with President Joe Biden’s insistence he will not unilaterally remove the IRGC from the US list of ‘foreign terrorist organizations.’

“We have not, and will not negotiate any lowering of our standards,” Malley said. “If they [non-US entities] want to do business with Iran they have to respect our sanctions…any reports to the contrary…are flat-out wrong.”

Uranium traces – ‘no short-cut’

Malley also denied reports the US would agree, as part of JCPOArevival, to pressure the International Atomic Energy Agency to drop enquiries into uranium traces found in 2019 at Iranian sites used before 2003 but not declared as nuclear-linked. He reiterated the US position that, regardless of JCPOA talks, Tehran should satisfy the agency over the traces as part of its ‘safeguards’ commitment under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

“Really what the agency is interested is not so much pre-historical, or historical, explanation,” Malley said. “They want to know where is that uranium today, that it’s accounted for, that it’s under what is called ‘safeguards’… There’s no short-cut.”

Malley refused to put forward any figure for assets Iran might access with JCPOA restoration – with the release of money frozen worldwide in banks fearing US secondary sanctions – or for what Tehran might net from higher oil sales, currently facing US ‘maximum pressure.’

He said a restored nuclear deal would be better than Iran “with an unconstrained nuclear program and with more aggressive regional behavior” as had occurred since President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the JCPOA in 2018, prompting Iran by 2019 to expand its atomic work beyond JCPOA limits.

Sunset clauses

Questioned over ‘sunset clauses’ under which JCPOA limits expire, Malley stressed the deal’s constraints. “In 2023 they can do more research and development on some advanced centrifuges, they cannot install them. The main constraint…[which] puts Iran several months away from having enough fissile material for one bomb… would last until 2031…The situation we’re in today, as a result of the decision to withdraw from the deal, is Iran is only a handful of weeks away from having enough fissile material for a bomb…”

JCPOA critics in Tehran and Washington have seized on the current negotiations pause. Veteran newspaper editor Hossein Shariatmadari wrote Wednesday that further talks were “futile.” In the US, Republicans and other deal opponents have cited an alleged Iranian plot to kill former national security advisor John Boltonand Friday’s attack on writer Salman Rushdie in arguing for an end to nuclear talks or expelling Iran’s diplomats at the United Nations in New York.