Iran Says Sanctions Moved To Top Of Agenda In Vienna Talks

Enrique Mora, a deputy general-secretary in the European Union, told reporters he was positive after the first round with Iran’s new negotiation team led by deputy foreign minister Ali Bagheri Kani.

Mora said Iran was engaging seriously while sticking to a position emphasizing the importance of lifting United States sanctions.

Bagheri Kani told reporters he was optimistic, and that parties to the talks had agreed they should focus on lifting sanctions.

"The meeting of the Joint Commission on #JCPOA is over,” Mikhail Ulyanov, Russian ambassador to United Nations organizations in Vienna tweeted. “The participants agreed on further immediate steps during the seventh round of negotiations which started quite successfully.”

The Vienna talks are formally between remaining signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action): China, France, Germany, Iran, Russia, and the United Kingdom. The United States, which left the deal under previous president Donald Trump in 2018, takes part indirectly.

The talks have been in abeyance since June. Rounds between April and June failed to reach agreement on how to revive the JCPOA, both by removing US ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions introduced by Trump and by scaling back Iran’s expansion of its nuclear program beyond JCPOA limits since 2019.

While the remaining JCPOA signatories have all argued they expect both the US and Iran to return to the terms of the agreement, there has been a growing difference of emphasis between the European trio (the ‘E3’), who have moved closer to the Biden administration in expressing disquiet over Iran’s expanding nuclear program and restricted cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and Russia and China.

The will of the West

In editorial piece published in the Financial Times on the eve of the talks Bagheri Kani referred not just to the US but wrote that Iran waited to see whether “the west has the will to enter real negotiations.”

Russia recently played down concerns over Iran expressed by IAEA chief Rafael Mariano Grossi. Moscow’s IAEA ambassador Mikhail Ulyanov said these were a “constant irritant” but had “little practical meaning in terms of proliferation risks” and the real challenge was restoring the JCPOA.

Wang Qun, China’s envoy at the International Atomic Energy Agency, last week linked the Vienna talks to the issue of Aukus atomic submarine deal between the US, UK and Australia.

“Why do the U.S. and U.K. say Iran can’t enrich uranium above 3.7 percent, while on the other hand they plan to transfer tons of highly enriched 90 percent material to Aukus?” Wang said Friday. “This is an example of a double standard.”

Under the JCPOA Iran is restricted in uranium enrichment to 3.67 percent, but is now enriching small quantities as high as 60 percent.

Iran International television reported that in a 4-page directive, the ministry of culture and Islamic guidance also reportedly ordered the press not to publish Persian translations of foreign media reports about the negotiations.

In the directive, the ministry said that it does not expect quick progress in the talks. Similar directives were issued to the press during the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when hardliners were put in charge of nuclear negotiations.

Commenting on the red lines set by the culture ministry some social media users said, "A lot of foreign reporters and foreign news agencies also cover the negotiations. Will they also obey such directives?" Meanwhile, an Iranian reporter working abroad characterized the directive as Iranian officials' " childish understanding of the way media work."

Meanwhile, as several reports said that the Iranian delegation consisted of 40 members, Akram Sharifi an Iranian reporter well familiar with the Foreign Ministry pointed out in a tweet on Sunday that "Most of the team of 40 are translators and interpreters." She explained that most of the members of the Iranian nuclear negotiation team in Vienna do not speak English."

There were more debates on social media about the number of Iranian team members. Prominent hardline lawmaker Nezamoddin Mousavi quoted a member of the former negotiating teamas "Braging about having negotiated with a delegation of four individuals while the new negotiating team consists of 40 people!"

The lawmaker added, "I wish they went for negotiations with 400 rather than four people and instead, did not "bluff about lifting all the sanctions," and did not say later that they did not know that the JCPOA called for suspending rather than lifting the sanctions."

In comments under the post, one social media user said, "Calm down brother! The number is not important. What is important is the result," while another one suggested: "You go with 4,000 people and try to return with the same 'suspension' if you can."

In another development, while Foreign Minister Amir-Abdollahian was adamant that an agreement was "feasible and within reach," Foreign Policy Commentator Diako Hosseini wrote in a tweet that "When Iran's declared positions in the talks are about effectively lifting the sanctions and the United States declared objective is controlling Iran's nuclear program and preventing the development of nuclear weapons, threatening Iran with leaving the talks is neither an effective leverage, nor a deterring tactic" for Washington.

At the same time in another tweet Hosseini said: "Although the United States has other options in case the talks fail, Iran has no way other than reaching an agreement in order to accomplish its declared target."

In another reference to the size of the Iranian negotiating team, some Iranian reporters abroad said that even if they have booked 20 rooms at the Palais Cuborg hotel where the talks take place, that would cost Iran 20,000 euros per night. Iranian reporters working in Iran who were probably prompted by the Foreign Ministry to respond, quickly replied that the cost of accommodation for the Iranian team is far less as they stay at a cheaper hotel in Vienna.

In the meantime, one of the interesting comments about the "indirect talks" between Iran and the United States was made by former reformist lawmaker Mahmoud Sadeghi who wrote in a tweet that regardless of their claims, Iranian hardliners know that the United States is the world's leader, and they lack the self-confidence to sit face to face with it."

Naftali Bennett said in a video statement that was delivered to representatives of nations opening negotiations with Iran that Tehran seeks "to end sanctions in exchange for almost nothing" and keep its nuclear program intact while receiving hundreds of billion dollars once sanctions are lifted.

The video was obtained by the Associated Press.

Negotiators from Iran and world powers were meeting in Vienna on Monday to resume talks aimed at reviving a 2015 nuclear deal.

Iran has ramped up its uranium enrichment since the United States withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018.

Israel vocally opposed that agreement, and Israeli officials now say Tehran is closer than ever to developing nuclear arms, something it will not abide.

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid is visiting London and Paris this week to discuss Iran with British and French officials, and Defense Minister Benny Gantz will head to Washington this week with the same aim.

Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. It has blamed the breakdown of the agreement on the Trump administration's decision to withdraw from it and restore crippling sanctions.

Report by AP

"Americans wasted our time in the [previous] six rounds of talks to preserve Trump's failed legacy," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told reporters at his regular weekly press conference on Monday. He was referring to Trump's 'maximum pressure' sanctions adding that the "real sides", presumably the United States and its western allies, should make use of the open window of opportunity because it will not remain open forever.

"Talks will go in the right direction if the US comes to the scene to resolve the impasse [in the talks]," Khatibzadeh said while reiterating that that the US is responsible for both abandoning the 2015 agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and imposing sanctions on Iran.

Indirect negotiations with the US that Iran suspended in June resume Monday afternoon in Vienna after a five-month hiatus. Expectations of a breakthrough are low as Iran has considerably boosted its uranium enrichment during this time and claims to come to the talks with "full hands". Tehran has stockpiled 20-percent and 60-percent enriched uranium, mostly this year after the Biden Administration said it is ready to return to the JCPOA.

"We will be in a difficult place if the US is not coming to Vienna for resolving the impasses," he said and added that the US can get the "ticket for returning to the JCPOA room" only if it intends to lift its sanctions on Iran.

In the meantime, Tehran has hardened its negotiating position, demanding that all US sanctions imposed since 2018 to be removed “at once”. It is also demanding a guarantee from Washington that no future US government can pull out of agreements made with Iran. This poses a particularly difficult issue for the Biden Administration, which constitutionally cannot offer such a guarantee.

Iran's chief negotiator Ali Bagheri-Kani Sunday met with top Russian and Chinese negotiators as well as the deputy foreign policy chief of the EU, Enrique Mora.

"The makeup of the Islamic Republic's negotiating delegation reflects this resolve and seriousness for taking serious steps towards the removal of the US' sanctions against the Iranian people," Bagheri-Kani told reporters in Vienna Sunday. The team is mainly composed of financial rather than political officials as in the previous nuclear talks.

In his press conference Monday, Khatibzadeh alleged that some European parties "are seeking to prolong" the talks and criticized the publication of a joint article by the UK Foreign Minister Liz Truss and Israel’s foreign affairs minister Yair Lapid in The Daily Telegraph Sunday in which they said Britain and Israel will "work night and day" in preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

"When you see the UK foreign minister write a joint article with the party that from day one has made every effort to prevent the signing of the JCPOA, to destroy it, and is still the main opponent of talks in Vienna to revive it, when you see this arrangement, you realize that at least some European countries are not coming to Vienna with the will required for lifting of sanctions," Khatibzadeh said.

Khatibzadeh also repeated Iranian claims that talks with Rafael Grossi, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog, IAEA, last week in Tehran had been left incomplete "because we did not reach a definitive agreement on some words and concepts that were important to both" but said the agreed clauses were "almost finalized".

Grossi has reported back to the IAEA Board of Governors that his agency cannot fully monitor Iran’s nuclear activities because of Tehran’s lack of cooperation.

Iran reduced IAEA’s monitoring access earlier this year when it intensified its uranium enrichment, further complicating the Vienna talks.

The spokesman for Iran’s armed forces said Sunday that Tehran will continue to strive for Israel’s destruction, adding that there is no way to come to terms with the United States.

General Abolfazl Shekarchi said that annihilating Israel is the Islamic Republic's biggest objective, reported the state-owned news agency ISNA on Sunday, November 28. He explained that the Iranian armed forces see Israel as a part of "international Zionism." Shekarchi further claimed that "Even Muslim countries that help Israel are part of the Zionist regime."

Meanwhile, Shekarchi stressed that there is no way Iran could compromise with America, adding that "Regrettably, some people in Iran believe we can come to terms with the United States as the Great Satan while America would never step back from its position of plundering the resources of the oppressed nations."

Speaking one day before the resumption of negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, he said "How can we come to terms with a country that looks at itself as the master and sees other nations as slaves? Making any compromise with such a country would undermine all our religious and revolutionary ideals."

Shekarchi said, "America's presence in this region is illegitimate. Our presence in the Red Sea or Syria is aimed at restoring security, but America is not in this region to restore security." He claimed, "This region will be insecure as long as the United States is present here. Its presence in this region cannot be tolerated by Iran or other regional nations."

The spokesman added that in his view "America's allies think like America but they have less power." He called US officials "Very Foolish" and at the same time called the UK and France "lesser Satans."

As the Iranian delegation is in Vienna to take part in negotiations with JCPOA partners and hold "indirect talks" with the United States, hardline media in Iran have renewed their attacks on the United States with a new momentum. Shekarchi's statements are part of this media blitz.

Hardline daily Kayhan, funded by Supreme Leader Khamenei's office, even went as far as accusing the United States of being behind recent protests in Esfahan and called the protesting farmers who were attacked by IRGC shotguns on Friday "the United States' foot soldiers." Meanwhile, in a commentary the daily reminded Iranian negotiators that their talks with the West begin on the anniversary of the killing of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh who was assassinated in Tehran a year ago purportedly by Israeli agents.

The IRGC-linked newspaper Javan also carried two stories against the negotiations and the United States on its front page on Sunday. The leading story refers to threats made by Washington of having other options if the Vienna talks fail and argues that "America has new plans and the statements made by US diplomats and other officials indicate that Washington has forgotten about the JCPOA. Their negotiators talk about total prevention of oil sales by Iran and bombing Iran's nuclear establishments."

Javan's commentary on the negotiations also claims that the US delegation's agenda is exerting redoubled pressures on Iran. The commentary points out that the United States is not directly involved in the talks but says Washington is planning to use other Western partners of the JCPOA, i.e., the Europeans, to exert pressure on Iran.