Iran Not Ready To Return To Vienna Talks, Asks For Review Of Texts
The visit of a top EU official to Tehran seems not to have produced any immediate results for resuming nuclear talks in Vienna, European officials indicate.
The visit of a top EU official to Tehran seems not to have produced any immediate results for resuming nuclear talks in Vienna, European officials indicate.
A senior EU official said on Friday Iran is not ready to return to talks with world powers yet and its new negotiating team wants to discuss the texts of previous talks when it meets with the EU in Brussels in the next few weeks, Reuters reported.
EU political director Enrique Mora, the chief coordinator for the talks, was in Tehran on Thursday to meet members of Iran's new nuclear negotiating team, four months after discussions broke off between Iran and world powers.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi (Raeesi) who assumed office in Auguat, has so far refused to resume indirect talks with the United States in Vienna despite earlier claims that it needed time to form a new government and return to the talks.
Diplomats from France, Britain and Germany, who are party to the accord along with China and Russia, said ahead of Mora's visit that it came at a critical time and things could not be deemed "business as usual" given escalating Iranian nuclear activities and the stalling of negotiations. The United States has also repeatedly said time was running short. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this week that Washington would consider “other options” if Iran delayed a resolution.
Meanwhile, Iran has been enriching uranium far beyond limits set by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or the Iran nuclear deal. Israel and many in the West are concerned that Tehran is getting close to a nuclear breakout while delaying talks to revive the JCPOA.
"They are not yet ready for engaging in Vienna," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity, adding that he believed Tehran was "absolutely decided to go back to Vienna and to end the negotiations." The Islamic Republic has repeatedly said it will return to the negotiations "soon", but it has not given a clearer timeline. Western diplomats had hoped the Vienna talks might resume before the end of October.
However, after Mora's visit, Iran's foreign ministry said it would hold talks in the coming days with the EU in Brussels.
"They insisted that they don't want talks for talks, they want talking with practical results and with a final agreement on how to bring JCPOA back to life," the official said.
Describing a meeting in Brussels as a "good idea", the official said it would give both sides the opportunity to go through the texts on the table from June and clarify questions that Iran's new negotiating team may have.
"I think we are just clarifying even more the situation for a final destination, which is going to be resuming in Vienna. I expect that soon," he said.
As Iran is enriching more uranium, it is also building more leverage to make new demands, which Western countries have dismissed as unacceptable. Iran has been mentioning lifting of sanctions and unfreezing of its blocked funds by the United States as a show of goodwill, while there is still no agreement on how the parties would return to the JCPOA.
With reporting by Reuters
Eghbal Shakeri, who is a member of Parliament's urban development committee, was quoted by Tasnim news agency on Monday that the ministry of roads and urban development was discussing with Chinese operators their possible involvement in President Ebrahim Raisi's (Raeesi) ambitious housing plans in order to avoid the delays in building projects under previous administrations. The urban development minister has also hinted that foreign companies, including those from China might be invited to bid on the housing project.
Iranian Students News Agency Thursday reported that Shakeri, who is also a member of the ministry's housing council, had now explained that the negotiations he referred to were "related to the ministry's own works," and not to Raisi’s scheme for building one million affordable units for sale every year.
The economic website Tejarat news last month suggested Raisi’s plans would need 10 trillion rials ($40 million) daily, or $15 billion annually, which is more than Iran’s oil export revenues last year. The World Bank noted this month that despite slight economic growth “poor economic activity, partly due to US [United States] sanctions, low oil revenues and higher recurrent and COVID-19 related expenditures” meant that Iran’s government faced a widened fiscal deficit.
China is easily the world’s biggest lender for development projects, with Chinese banks committing over $462 billion in development finance to 93 countries between 2008 and 2019, including building projects from Hong Kong to north America. China itself has had a massive program of social and affordable housing.
But Iranian private-sector operators and some media have rejected Chinese involvement, arguing that both resources and technical know-how are available in Iran. Speaking to the economic website Eghtesad News Wednesday, Iraj Rahbar, deputy chairman of Iran's Housing Companies Association, said Chinese companies could not expedite matters.
"The problem of delay in delivery [by Iranian companies] results from cash flow issues, not their technical and engineering incompetence in comparison with the Chinese," he said. Rahbar argued that the government's failure to pay contractors on time would hinder projects whether domestic or Chinese. "They will just abandon the work," he said.
Rahbar cited the Tehran-North Freeway project to connect the capital to the Caspian Sea region through the Alborz mountains. "We used Chinese companies but they abandoned the project after 20 years and left Iran," he said. "Sadly, we haven't learned a lesson from such cases."
The new minister for urban development, Rostam Ghasemi, has also suggested that Iran has everything needed for a large housing program − land, building material and engineering. On Thursday Ghasemi said money was also available, with 3,600 trillion rials (about $14.5 billion at current exchange rates) to be offered in loans to buyers in the first year.
Land would be provided free, the minister said, with the government also investing in infrastructure and amenities, and offering discounts on building tax.
While most principlist media and politicians welcome Raisi's plan, critics disparage it by citing the Mehr housing scheme of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-13), when oil prices were far higher than today and Iran, especially until 2011, was under far less stringent sanctions.
Three million units were built under the plan during Ahmadinejad’s presidency and a further 1.3 million under President Hassan Rouhani (2013-21), although Rouhani in 2014 conceded the scheme had boosted inflation.
In a devastating earthquake in western Iran in 2018, Mehr apartment buildings sustained more damage than other constructions and President Hassan Rouhani called for an investigation . Many new owners complained about problems, including a lack of infrastructure and amenities like public transport and schools near new apartment blocks, often built away from cities and towns.