An advisor to Iran’s negotiating team has criticized Washington’s reaction to Tehran’s latest position on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, saying for the US "constructive" means accepting its terms.
Mohammad Marandi, who acts as de facto spokesman for the Islamic Republic’s nuclear negotiating team, said in a tweet on Friday that “It's time for the Biden team to make a serious decision.”
Noting that If the United States makes “the right decision, an agreement can be swiftly concluded,” he said that “For the US 'constructive' usually means accepting US terms; for Iran it means a deal that is balanced and protected.”
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said early on Friday that Tehran has sent a "constructive" response to US proposals, but the US State Department gave a different assessment.
"We can confirm that we have received Iran's response through the EU," a White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said. "We are studying it and will respond through the EU, but unfortunately it is not constructive,” adding that "Some gaps have closed in recent weeks, but others remain."
Also on Friday, Tasnim news, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard, quoted Ebrahim Azizi, the deputy chairman of the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, as saying that the US should decide whether it wants to finalize the agreement or not. “Iran's most important demand is economic benefit,” he said, reiterating that “the safeguard issues must be also resolved and all allegations about Iran's nuclear issue must be dropped.”
Iranian analysts speaking to Iran International TV said that they believe the threat is aimed at making the United States even more eager than before to forge an agreement with Tehran.
Kowsari said in his remarks, as reported by Etemad Online, that Iran can boost uranium enrichment from the current 60 percent to the bomb-grade 93 percent. He added that it is the United States that needs Tehran and not vice versa.
Meanwhile, he denied that Iran's ailing economy badly needs the benefits of an agreement that would lift sanctions on its oil exports and international banking.
In another development, conservative website Nameh News wrote in a commentary on September 1, that although officials and media on both sides are hopeful, it is unlikely that an agreement can be concluded in the next few days. However, the commentary reminded that the delay would lead to losses for Iran, for which the opponents of agreement should be held accountable.
Nameh News said many in Iran believe that President Ebrahim Raisi's comments in a press conference earlier this week could be taken as an early "No" to an agreement.
Iran submitted its response late on September 1 and a US official’s first response was that Tehran’s reply was “not constructive”.
The commentary also reminded that Israeli's are working hard in the meantime to dissuade the United States from signing a deal to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, JCPOA. The commentary further claimed that France is also against a nuclear agreement with Iran and is trying to obstruct the deal. The website claimed that if an agreement is made, Iran will be able to export 2.5 million barrels of oil per day and earn $7.5 billions per month.
Rouydad24, another Iranian website claimed based on Israeli media reports that the new agreement is a weaker document than the original 2015 deal. The website argued that difference between the new and old agreements is not simply about a change in political situation, but it is also the fact that the new version is not as strong as ‘JCPOA-1’.
The website also wrote that the fast-changing international political situation has cast a shadow of doubt on the fate of the agreement, and it is difficult to make a prediction with a good degree of certainty. What is certain, wrote Rouydad24, is that currently more observers who believe the JCPOA can be revived only if a dead man can be returned to life. The website called the revival of the nuclear deal "a fantasy."
The website added that any agreement, if and when it is reached, will not be something like a JCPOA-2. It will certainly be a new deal.
Meanwhile, proreform news website Fararu wrote that given the existence of numerous differences and disputes between Iran and the United States, a stand-alone nuclear deal cannot be long-lasting.
“Even if this happens, as in 2015, it will only be an expression of tactical tolerance of the other side, and the foundations of such an agreement will be shaky. Chances of Iran and the US reaching a sustainable agreement will remain very low as long as the problems between them are not addressed in a fundamental manner,” Fararu said.
In a video interview earlier this week, Mohammad-Saleh Hashemi-Golpaygani, in charge of a government organization called Enjoining Good and Forbidding Evil Headquarters, claimed that gender segregation in higher education institutions will contribute to the progress of science and knowledge.
“I don't have an answer when I'm asked why students are kept separate before they reach adulthood but are mixed when they go to university,” he said.
Boys and girls are strictly separated from primary school, but most universities are mixed gender.
“Families will welcome gender segregation [in higher education]. They want a safe environment [for their children],” he said wildly claiming that there are twenty-one universities and colleges in the world that segregate including some in the United States. He also claimed that the average grade point rose by 1.5 in these universities after separating men and women.
Hashemi-Golpaygani’s remarks have outraged many on social media and websites and newspapers have criticized him for his controversial remarks.
In an editorial Tuesday, the moderate conservative Asriran told Hashem-Golpaygani that with his “imprudent and incorrect statements” -- including the undocumented claim that many of the world's top universities have implemented gender segregation and achieved better academic results as well as existence of facial recognition software that can help identify women with insufficient hijab -- he obliterates the Islamic concept of ‘enjoining good and forbidding evil’ and provides sensational stories for foreign-based Persian language media.
Some social media users have pointed out that Hashemi-Golpaygani’s own daughter has been studying in a mixed-gender university in Belgium.
In the same interview, Hashem-Golpaygani said that public CCTV cameras, including those in metro stations, are programmed to use facial recognition technology to take photos of unveiled women and to compare against photos in a national database to identify those who break the hijab rules. He suggested that the rule breakers be fined in the same way that people are fined for violating traffic regulations.
Hashem-Golpaygani said recently that about half of Iranian women do not abide by the mandatory hijab rules.
In its editorial entitled “Watch Fewer Sci-Fi Movies”, Asriran also told the offical that he should present himself to Iran’s state-run Cinema Organization if he is interested in the science fiction genre. His suggestion that fining hijab-rule-breakers by using blurry CCTV images will help convert them to hijab “would only be possible in sci-fi or comic films,” Asriran wrote.
The website also suggested that such technology, if it were available in the country, would better be used to find dangerous criminals. The police have numerous burglaries, car thefts, and mugging cases on their hands with footage of the culprits who they cannot identify.
In recent months government and security agencies have intensified their efforts to pressure women into abiding by the hijab laws and several rounds of anti-hijab civil disobedience campaigns have followed.
The patrols by the ‘morality police’ have increased on the streets and videos of violent arrests of women and girls as well as confrontations between people and hijab enforcers, including a recent incident in Shiraz which resulted in the closure of the shopping center where it happened, are becoming too common on social media.