Putin Says Talks With Israel's Bennet 'Very Productive'

The youngest Friday Prayers’ Imam in Tehran, Mohammad-Javad Haj Ali Akbari reiterated this week’s calls by Iranian officials at the International Islamic Unity Conference held in Tehran for Muslims to strive for friendship and close ranks against “foreign plots”.

The Islamic conference is a public relations event organized by the Islamic Republic to show that there is unity among Shiites and Sunnis and to carve a place for the clerical regime among other Muslims.

Iran has started talks with Saudi Arabia since April for reducing tensions and possibly reestablishing relations that were severed in 2016. Iran is keen to show the West that it is trying to improve ties with regional countries on its own and there is no need for them to demand negotiations over the issue.

The Friday Prayers Leader praised Iranian armed forces for their “brilliant” accomplishments and claimed that “Americans with their scandal in elections and defeat in West Asia, which was a strategic defeat, have no option but exit from Iraq.” He added that the US after spending 8 trillion dollars in West Asia was defeated and “even if it spends 800 trillion, it has no option but to leave” the region.

The prayers at Tehran University, a gathering of religious and political significance, came as authorities warned of a sixth wave of the coronavirus, which according to official figures has claimed 124,928 lives in Iran and afflicted more than 5.8 million. Critics of the government’s handling of the pandemic say the real death toll was at least twice the official figure.

The government says more than 28.2 million people have so far received a second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.

“Today is a very sweet day for us. We thank the Almighty for giving us back the Friday prayers after a period of restrictions and deprivation,” said Haj Ali Akbari said.

Worshippers had to heed social distancing and use face masks during the gathering, a forum where officials present a unified front in the weekly sermon, a duty that rotates around senior members of Iran’s conservative clerical establishment.

Most worshippers brought their own prayer rugs and clay tablets used during prostration, said the broadcast.

It said Friday prayers also were performed in several other Iranian cities.

Health Minister Bahram Einollah said earlier this week that it was a "certainty" that Iran would face a sixth wave next week. The warning came even as the country has accelerated its vaccination drive.

Einollahi added that his country was well-prepared for the new surge.

Schools with more than 300 students will re-open on Nov. 6, Alireza Kamarei, spokesman for Iran’s Education Ministry, said earlier this week, adding that it was not essential for students and teachers to be vaccinated. He said 85% of the country's teachers and 68% of students had so far been inoculated and that classrooms were well ventilated.

With reporting by Reuters

At one point in the interview, carried out by Brian Finlay of the Stimson Center, Grossi, the IAEA director-general replies "yes" when asked if he would support censuring Iran at the agency’s late November board meeting, but Finlay fails to ask a single follow-up question, even to query the grounds for censure.

This led to considerable confusion in media reports but Grossi or the IAEA have not denied that he said “yes” to the question about censuring Iran. It would be uncommon if the IAEA chief would publicly endorse censure, a decision that member states should make.

Throughout the rest of the interview, Grossi makes the clear distinction characteristic of the IAEA between its technical role as the body responsible for monitoring Iran’s nuclear sites and any political decisions taken by the nation-states who are IAEA members and sit on its board.

By the time he sat down with Finlay Thursday for a session broadcast live on Zoom, Grossi had met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, as well as senators and members of congress. Asked about the ‘plan b’ or “other options” touted by Blinken should nuclear talks with Iran fail, Grossi said: “This is a national thing, or a multinational thing, and I don’t have an opinion on that.”

Grossi described the situation with Iran as a “difficult juncture” and stressed the importance of explaining the agency’s actions to the US government and “of course to listen to them.”

The IAEA head explained how the agency’s role interacted with the Vienna nuclear talks, which until suspended in June had sought to revive Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).

With the US, which left the JCPOA in 2018, taking part indirectly in Vienna alongside remaining JCPOA signatories – China, France, Germany, Iran, Russia and the United Kingdom – the talks have struggled to agree which US sanctions contravene the JCPOA and exactly how Iran’s nuclear program, expanded and improved since 2019, should be returned to JCPOA limits.

“When it comes to the JCPOA I am not a party to the negotiations,” Grossi said. “The IAEA is an essential element as a guarantor and a verifier, and we are in constant deliberation with the negotiators as to whether what they are doing is in line what we might be needed to be verifying and so forth. It’s an immensely dense process…”

Grossi explained that the IAEA’s role had entered a “new phase” not with the new administration of president Ebrahim Raisi (Raeesi), which took office in August, but with last December’s vote by the Iranian parliament requiring the government, should the US not lift sanctions, to both increase uranium enrichment and reduce IAEA monitoring to that required by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. “Parliament was telling the government what to do with an amazing degree of specificity,” Grossi noted.

Keeping the patient stable

This had led Grossi to reach a temporary arrangement in February, extended in September, for IAEA access by maintaining its cameras, giving it the opportunity should the Vienna talks succeed to restore a full picture of Iran’s nuclear work.

Grossi said that in his talks in Tehran in February he had argued that keeping such a level of monitoring might help keep Iran’s “partners” within the JCPOA “simply because they would be able to avoid a big black hole” in terms of their knowledge of Iran’s activities. “We have been keeping the patient stable in terms of the amount of information and quality of information we can put on the table,” he noted.

Grossi has raised several matters of concern recently over Iran, including past unexplained nuclear work and the agency being stopped from servicing equipment at a site in Karaj.

But he clearly told the Stimson Center it was too early to anticipate what would happen at the IAEA board of governors meeting in November. At the last meeting September, the US did not raise a motion of censure, as it had been speculated, possibly because Russia made clear it would object.

Grossi said the board meeting was in his “mental structure” so far away that it was part of the 23rd century. “There is so much going on, and so much that may influence what may or may not happen there. I am concentrating on the immediate challenges that we have …There are many actors.”

The Iranian media generally played down the Grossi interview. Outlets most critical of the JCPOA have criticized the IAEA for following a political agenda coming from Washington.

Javan daily newspaper published a commentary by Hadi Mohammadi on Thursday that the United States is using the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to monitor Iran's nuclear activities and to inspect its nuclear installations on its behalf, based on the authority vested in the UN nuclear watchdog by the Non-Proliferation Protocol (NPT) and some of the clauses in the Iran nuclear deal, JCPOA.

The United States and the West benefit from the intelligence gathered by the IAEA for them free of charge, Mohammadi claimed in the commentary. Meanwhile, he opined that this intelligence gathering mechanism was badly harmed with the reduction in Iran's commitments under the JCPOA. However, the IAEA Chief is trying to get back the initial concessions given to the West by the JCPOA, Javan maintained.

Last December, Iran passed a law limiting IAEA’s monitoring access to its nuclear sites, demanding that the US should lift its sanctions. A limited and temporary deal is in place now, but Grossi has complained that Iran is curtailing his agency’s ability to do its job.

The commentary further stressed that in fact, it is the United States that is under ‘maximum pressure’ by Iran to return to the negotiations as it has failed to force Iran to make new concessions.

Javan insisted that there is no room for the inclusion of talks about Iran's missile programs in the new negotiations, and the West can only hope to harness Iran's nuclear program, but it needs to give concessions to make that possible.

It described Grossi's call for having a political discussion with Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian as naïve and warned the IAEA chief that Iran is not under any commitment to go beyond the discussion of technical matters within the frameworks of NPT. Mohammadi added that Grossi should know that the members of Tehran's new negotiating team are different from their predecessors.

The commentary said that Grossi can only talk with Iran's nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami rather than hoping to meet with the foreign minister. "He should distance himself from the idea of holding talks in Iran by proxy for the United States," the commentary said, adding that a chat with Eslami is the most he can get if he visits Tehran. The US, said the commentary, should forget about the division of labor with Grossi and instead should make concessions.

Meanwhile, in another article entitled "Winding in Washington," another IRGC media outlet likened Grossi to a clock that Washington has winded to make its moves in Tehran. This article also repeated the argument of the commentary about Grossi being used by the US as a tool to exert pressure on Tehran before starting the talks to revive the JCPOA.

The article added that Washington is also planning to use Grossi to exert pressure on other countries, including China, via the International Atomic Energy Agency. This was a reference to US officials' statements about asking China to stop buying oil from Iran.

Grossi asked to meet with Amirabdollahian following his meetings with US officials including Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week. During the meeting, Blinken said that Iran should remain committed to the verification of its nuclear activities, stop provocative actions and return to diplomacy.

Subsequently, Grossi told the Financial Times Monday that "a temporary arrangement for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to monitor Iran’s nuclear sites was no longer intact." Grossi told the newspaper he wanted "an urgent meeting – 'contact at the political level' − with Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian to discuss surveillance arrangements."

“I haven’t been able to talk to [Iran’s new] foreign minister,” Grossi told the FT. “I need to have this contact at the political level. This is indispensable. Without it, we cannot understand each other.”

Bennett stressed the importance of the relationship between Israel and Russia, highlighting the "million" Russian speakers who live in the country.

Bennett’s predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu regularly had meetings with Putin to regulate their interactions regarding Syria.

Bennett also confirmed Israel's international status was "significantly strengthening" and was progressing well.

Bennett will meet Putin to discuss political, security and economic issues, including the Iran nuclear program.

The two countries operate a military hotline to coordinate air force operations over Syria to avoid clashes.

Israel often attacks Iranian-linked targets in Syria, while Russia has provided protection for the Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria.

Russia is one of the international parties that negotiated a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

The deal fell apart after then-President Donald Trump withdrew in 2018.

But the new US administration is now trying to revive the deal that would lift sanctions and offer a lifeline to the Islamic Republic — a step that Israel, Saudi Arabia and others in the region oppose.

Prince Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud discussed the Iran nuclear talks with the European Union envoy, Enrique Mora, the Saudi Foreign ministry said on Thursday.

"They discussed developments regarding the Iranian nuclear program talks, and international efforts to ensure that Iran does not violate international agreements and treaties in this regard," it added in a statement.

Iran has been enriching uranium far beyond limits set by the 2015 nuclear agreement, JCPOA. The West and many regional countries are concerned at the possibility of Iran becoming a nuclear threshold state.

Prince Faisal met with US Special envoy Rob Malley on Thursday also to discuss the Iran nuclear talks. Saudi Arabia, which opposed the JCPOA and backed former president Donald Trump in leaving the deal in 2018, wants the US to introduce new issues, including Iran’s missile program and links with regional allies.

Saudi Arabia has tempered its approach since US president Joe Biden took office in January committed to restoring the JCPOA and has held a series of exploratory talks with Iran in Baghdad designed to explore easing tensions.