Iran Nuclear Negotiator Announces Meeting With EU Diplomat

Ali Shamkhani, who has the rank of an admiral in the IRGC Navy, tweeted in Persian and Arabic referring to new reports that Israel has appropriated an additional $1.5 billion budget to confront Iran’s nuclear threat.

Shamkhani wrote that instead of spending the money on “mischief” Israel should prepare to spend tens of billion of dollars to rebuild after a “decisive” attack by Iran.

Israel media had reported on October 18 that the additional money set to be approved by the government in November, would pay for aircraft, intelligence-gathering drones and armaments needed for a strike against hardened Iranian nuclear targets.

Iran has suspended negotiation with world power over restoring the 2015 nuclear agreement knowsn as JCPOA since June as it enriched uranium and building a stockpile that could reduce the time for building a nuclear device.

Israeli officials have warned on several occasions since August that if no options are left they would "go it alone" to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

"Does anybody know what it can mean in practical terms?" Ulyanov said in a tweet in a rare biting language Saturday quoting Hossein Amir-Abdollahian that talks with world powers on the revival of the 2015 nuclear agreement would resume "soon".

Since taking office on August 25, Amir-Abdollahian has repeatedly said Iran would be returning to the suspended talks in Vienna, but despite pressure from other participants, Iran has never set a date. On Saturday he once again said multilateral nuclear talks in Vienna will resume “soon”.

In his joint press conference with the visiting Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Moscow last week, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia believes the way to restore the nuclear agreement lies only in "consistent and full implementation by all parties based on the initially recorded balance of interests". He declared that both Moscow and Tehran believe the Vienna talks must be resumed as soon as possible and that Tehran has indicated to him that it is ready for this.

Tehran has strong relations with Moscow, but it appears that even Moscow's patience is running out with Iran delaying its return to the talks. Iran suspended the talks two days after its presidential elections of June 18. Meanwhile, it is continuing to enrich uranium creating concern in many capitals that it is getting close to having enough fissile material for a bomb.

Iran asked the European Union to have a meeting in Brussels to clarify issues related to the first six rounds of talks in Vienna, but the United States objected, saying such a meeting was not necessary. It appeared Tehran wanted to open a new negotiating track without the presence of Washington.

Iran and Russia may also have other disagreements behind the scenes over Russia's cooperation with Israel regarding Syria, tension between Iran and Azerbaijan which makes large purchases of Israeli weapons including Arrow-3 missiles and surveillance drones, and Iran's wishes to procure military equipment from Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Israeli Prime Minister Naphtali Bennet. Israel's Housing Minister Ze’ev Elkin has said that Putin and Bennet held “deep” discussions on Iran’s nuclear program and a “very wide” conversation on maintaining a coordination mechanism regarding Syria, but there are no details so far about the discussion. "It was decided to keep policies vis-à-vis Russia in place [regarding airstrikes] in Syrian territory,” Ze'ev added.

Iran and Russia both support Bashar al-Assad but have different interestsand do not always see eye to eye in Syria where Iranian presence and influence can be considered as a threat to Israel, which has been targeting Iranian military bases and weapons transfers in Syria since early 2017 while Russia has looked the other way.

In his press conference with the Iranian foreign minister Lavrov said Russia is opposed to "building up military activity" in the Caucasus region or "conducting any exercises of a provocative nature" and added that Azerbaijan has expressed concern over the exercises that were recently held by Iran near its borders." Lavrov also stressed that Russia opposes the "presence of military forces or any non-Caspian states in the Caspian Sea as soon as possible."

The exercises held by Iran in early October near the border with Azerbaijan were one of the largest ever carried out in the northwest of the country.

A few days after Mora’s one-day trip, Vatan-e Emrooz, a daily founded by an aide of former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, published a report saying that the Iranian foreign ministry held a birthday party for the European envoy. The news led to some controversy on Twitter, and other media in Iran reprinted the report.

As of Sunday, October 24, Vatane-e Emrooz website seems to have been blocked by Iranian censors and its Instagram page is also not available. Its Twitter account has been inactive since October 20 when it published its report about the birthday party.

Mora had traveled to Tehran to break an impasse in reconvening the Vienna nuclear talks between Iran and world powers. Iran has stopped attending the meetings since June.

Both centrist and reformist media have criticized the foreign ministry, which has so far not officially denied the report by Vatan-e Emrooz. The centrist Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA) while reporting on the birthday party, has pointed out that the move by the foreign ministry was out of order, “considering the state of relations between Iran and the other side [West] in the JCPOA negotiations.”

The reformist newspaper Entekhab, however, has gone much farther, accusing the hardliners, who control the foreign ministry, of hypocrisy in their constant attacks on former foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif when he was interacting with Western diplomats, and now when they reportedly hold a birthday party for Mora.

Entekhab in an article on Saturdayemphasized that the foreign ministry has not denied the report by Vatan-e Emrooz. The website said that its reporters have tried in vain to obtain the reaction of parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee. One conservative lawmaker told Entekhab, “I am not aware of the controversy”.

The website also drew attention to the silence of hardliner media over the issue. It mentioned the example of the ultra-conservative Kayhan daily, affiliated with the office of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. While Kayhan harshly attacked Zarif for a stroll with former US Secretary of State John Kerry in 2015, now it ignores the rumor about the birthday party, the website said. It added that allowing the foreign ministry to do its job is good news, but it shows the hypocrisy of the hardliners, who constantly impeded Zarif’s work.

During his visit to Tehran, Mora met Ali Bagheri Kani, the new man in charge of the nuclear file in Iran’s foreign ministry and a well-know hardliner. Entekhab quotes Kani’s anti-Western remarks in the past and contrasts it with the alleged birthday party.

Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) who was in Washington for a week, highlighted the fact that Iran has refused to allow his agency to replace cameras in a key facility producing uranium enrichment centrifuges.

Iran’s parliament last December passed a law reducing cooperation with the IAEA in a bid to force the new US administration to lift sanctions. Iran’s tough posture came as candidate Joe Biden in September 2020 had expressed his readiness, if elected, to return to the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, which Donald Trump had abandoned two years earlier.

In February, Grossi reached a temporary agreement with Iran to continue taped monitoring by cameras and the arrangement has remained in place but gradually eroded.

Grossi also told NBC that he has not been able to establish the kind of direct communication with the new hardline Iranian government. He complained that after more than two months, he has not been able to speak to the new foreign minister.

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian made the remark in Tehran on Saturday in a meeting with Khosro Nazeri, the General Secretary of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) a regional agency created by Turkey, Iran and Pakistan in the 1980s.

Based on a report of the meeting by local media. Amir-Abdollahian referred to his talks with European Union chief negotiator for Iran talks Enrique Mora and said these discussions will continue in Brussels, promising that talks will resume soon.

Iran asked the European Union to have a meeting in Brussels to clarify issues related to the first six rounds of talks in Vienna, but the United States objected, saying such a meeting is not necessary. It appeared Tehran wanted to open a new negotiating track without the presence of Washington.

Iran stopped attending the Vienna talks in June and despite pressure from other participants it has mage a vague pledge to resume the negotiations “soon”. Meanwhile, it is continuing to enrich uranium creating concern in many capitals that it is getting close to having enough fissile material for a bomb.