Britain Warns Iran Nuclear Talks 'Approaching Dangerous Impasse'

During his weekly briefing Tuesday, government spokesman Ali Bahadori Jahromi repeated that Iranian negotiators retained their focus on guarantees and verification over lifting United States sanctions once the 2015 deal is back in place. Jahromi rejected speculation that President Ebrahim Raisi (Raeesi) had discussed the possibility of an interim agreement during his recent visit to Moscow and insisted this was not on the agenda in Vienna.

Earlier in the week, Iran's ambassador to Moscow, Kazem Jalali, refuted reports that Russia has proposed that Iran accept an interim arrangement that would see Iran given specific sanctions relief in return for again accepting some of the nuclear curbs required under the 2015 accord, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).

US officials have said the ideaof an interim accord was proposed by Russia, with Washington made aware of the move. Although there have been rumors − encouraged by South Korea transferring Iranian money to pay Tehran’s backdated United Nations dues − of the US ‘allowing’ Asian states to release Iranian funds frozen in fear of US sanctions, no specifics have emerged. Iranian officials have repeated called on the US to take ‘good-will measures.’

Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council appeared to be endorsing direct talks in a tweet Tuesday. "Contact with the American delegation in Vienna has been through informal written exchanges, and there was no need, and will be no need, for more contact, so far," he wrote but added that this communication method could only be replaced by other methods when a "good agreement is within reach".

Shamkhani's tweet mirrored Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian's remarks in an address to the first National Conference of Iran and Neighbors in Tehran Monday where he dismissed social media reports of direct negotiations with the US but said the necessity of direct talks would not be "overlooked" if a "good deal with strong guarantees" was within reach in the process of negotiations.

Amir-Abdollahian said the US has been sending messages to Iran through various channels asking for "a certain level of direct talks" and appeared to be suggesting that the time to decide was drawing near quickly. "Our talks are approaching a point where technical negotiations will be completed, in not too far future, and we need to make a political decision."

However, a Western diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity told Iran International Tuesday that in the current circumstances there is very little chance of direct talks between Iran and the United States. Commenting on Amir-Abdollahian's remarks Monday, the diplomat said this could change the situation and pave the way for direct talks if the Iranian foreign minister's remarks were announcement of a new approach.

"Direct Talks on Condition of a Good Agreement with Strong Guarantees" was printed on the frontpage of the IRGC-affiliated Javan newspaper Tuesday with Amir-Abdollahian's photo. Referring to Amir-Abdollahian's remarks about "completion of technical negotiations in not so far in the future" and the necessity of "making a political decision" at that point, the website said this was the key point in his statement on Monday. "Iran is not afraid of holding direct talks with the US if it is assured that the outcome of this political decision is a 'a good agreement with strong guarantees'," Javan wrote.

Referring to Amir-Abdollahian's remarks, the Russian envoy to the talks Mikhail Ulyanov,in a tweet Monday said direct talks at advanced stage of the Vienna talks "might be useful". Ulyanov who has held some separate meetings with Malley in Vienna has on several occasions complained about lack of direct communication between Iran and the US.

The US State Department on Monday reiterated that it remains open to meeting with Iranian officials directly to discuss the nuclear deal and other issues. “We are prepared to meet directly. We have consistently held the position that it would be much more productive to engage with Iran directly on both JCPOA negotiations and on other issues,” State Department Spokesman Ned Price told reporters Monday.

"Meeting directly would enable more efficient communication, which is urgently needed to swiftly reach an understanding on a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA," Price added.

The Western diplomat who spoke to Iran International also said that the departure of three members of the US negotiation team, including the deputy special envoy for Iran Richard Nephew, from the talks did not necessarily mean Washington had changed its approach over direct talks with Tehran.

The Wall Street Journal in a report Monday said sources close to the US negotiation team have stated that Nephew, an architect of previous economic sanctions on Iran, and two other members of the team have left due to disagreements over Malley's soft posture towards Tehran in the current negotiations.

Among the issues that have divided the team are how firmly to enforce existing sanctions and whether to cut off negotiations as Iran drags them out while its nuclear program advances, the people familiar with the negotiations told the Wall Street Journal.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Monday that the US is prepared to meet with Iranian officials directly in bilateral as well as multilateral formats.

He reiterated Washington’s position a day after Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Tehran would consider direct talksif a good deal is in sight.

“Meeting directly would enable more efficient communication, which is urgently needed to swiftly reach an understanding on a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA”, he said during a press briefing.

Price said the US seeks to hold direct talks urgently because the nonproliferation benefits of the JCPOA as initially drafted and implemented are getting outweighed by the pace of Iran’s nuclear advancements.

In response to a question about when such direct talks would happen, Price said the authorities in Tehran should answer the question because “the Iranians have insisted on the indirect format in Vienna. We have long noted the fact that indirect talks, especially on an issue of this complexity and of this importance, is a hindrance”.

About Special Envoy Robert Malley’s comments about the issue of Iran releasing American hostages, Price said that these issues “are operating on separate tracks” because it would serve anybody's interests “to tie their fates to a mutual return to JCPOA compliance that is “uncertain at best”.

“If during the negotiation process we reach a point that achieving a good agreement with solid guarantees requires a level of talks with the US, we will not ignore that in our work schedule,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in Tehran on the side-lines of the First National Conference of Iran and Neighbors.

Iran has so far kept direct talks in Vienna, which began in April, to the structures set up under the 2015 agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), which the US left in 2018. That is negotiations with four members of the UN Security Council and Germany which have remained in the deal.

Amir-Abdollahian said that “indirect talks with the United States have so far been mediated by European Union envoy Enrique Mora − who is the coordinator for negotiations − as well as one or two other countries participating in Vienna talks…The American side has so far presented its proposals on technical issues to Iran through the same channels.”

The talks have covered ‘technical’ issues both in Iran’s nuclear program, expanded since 2019 beyond JCPOA limits and the intricacies of US sanction. But Amir-Abdollahian suggested talks were now reaching a point where “we have to make a political decision.”

Washington’s Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley, who heads the US negotiating team in Vienna, told Reuters Sunday that the US would welcome direct talks with Tehran, stressing that his side had “heard nothing to that effect” so far.

While Iran held direct talks with the US over Afghanistan and Iraq, and later in the run-up to the signing of the JCPOA in 2015, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in 2018 ruled out direct talks until the US returned to the JCPOA.

Amir-Abdollahian rejected speculation over secret talks, although noting that Washington sent messages every now and then “in various ways” to call for direct contacts.

Some Iranian politicians, mostly critics of President Ebrahim Raisi, have argued that the Vienna talks have not been constructive and that direct talks involving the US are needed. Outspoken politician Ali Motahari, deputy-speaker in the previous parliament, has described an unwillingness to directly engage with the US as an “obvious mistake” and a “revolutionary gesture…against the national interest”.

Good-will gestures

The JCPOA followed two years of talks between the US and Iran, beginning with a ‘back channel’ established though Oman, and culminating in face-to-face bilateral meetings between Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was in 2019 sanctioned by President Donald Trump after he withdrew the US from the JCPOA.

In the Vienna talks, a US deputation led by Malley participates indirectly, liaising through Mora and the remaining JCPOA signatories – China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United Kingdom.

There has been talk in recent weeks of good-will gestures between Iran and the US, including the suggestion that the US might waive the threat of punitive action against third parties holding money owed to Iran, so allowing Iran to begin repatriating billions of dollars owed largely for oil sales.

South Korea said Sunday it had used ‘frozen’ Iranian funds to pay Iran’s $18 million dues at the United Nations, a step apparently approved by Washington, to restore Tehran’s suspended voting rights at the world body. The Iranian Student News Agency reported November that Iran had $8 billion in South Korea, $ 3billion in Japan, and $6billion in Iraq – monies frozen by banks fearful of the US third-party sanctions in place since 2018.

"I emphasize again that these two issues are separate, but if there is a will on the other side, we can reach agreements on both [groups of prisoners] in the shortest time possible," Saeed Khatibzadeh the foreign ministry spokesman said.

Khatibzadeh, in his Monday briefing for reporters linked the foreigners and dual citizens detained in Iran to Iranians jailed in the United States for violating US sanctions.

The spokesman this could be done if the “US abides by the agreements that it made before.” The spokesman apparently referred to the jailing of Iranians over violating sanctions, including those introduced by presidential order under the ‘maximum pressure’ on Iran begun in 2018, when the US left the 2015 nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) and introduced sanctions incompatible with it.

Khatibzadeh alleged that Iranian citizens in the US were held “in inhumane conditions” on “the false accusation of circumventing [US] sanctions,” whereas US citizens held in Iran had committed crimes and had been lawfully sentenced.

The US and other Western citizens and dual nationals in question have in general been convicted by Revolutionary Courts on security charges after trials that human rights organizations have said do not meet international standards of due process.

Khatibzadeh said Iran had often expressed concerns on humanitarian grounds over Iranians held in the US, and insisted their plight had been Iran's agenda "both directly and indirectly, both before and these [nuclear] talks, and even during them.”

Malley and ‘preconditions’

In an interview with Reuters published Monday, the US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley stressed the importance of the release of four American-Iranians held in Iran but stopped short of saying their freedom was a precondition for Washington re-entering the JCPOA.

"They're separate [agreement in Vienna and the prisoners’ release] and we're pursuing both of them,” Malley said. “But I will say it is very hard for us to imagine getting back into the nuclear deal while four innocent Americans are being held hostage by Iran.”

His remarks were interpreted both by Reuters and media in Iran as a US “pre-condition” for agreement in Vienna, although Malley’s words appeared less a diplomatic demarche than an effort to convince former US hostage Barry Rosen to end a hunger strike in Vienna aimed at making the prisoners’ release a US precondition, which was attracting media attention.

"So even as we're conducting talks with Iran indirectly on the nuclear file we are conducting, again indirectly, discussions with them to ensure the release of our hostages," Malley told Reuters.

Iranian media took up Reuters’ suggestion that Malley had "moved a step close… to saying that their release was a precondition for a nuclear agreement."

Obstruction

The official news agency IRNA detected "Washington's new obstruction in the course of Vienna talks” with the US apparently seeking “to make the path to reaching a deal in Vienna hard, under various pretexts.” Fars news agency reported Malley's remarks under the headline "Washington Sets Precondition for Returning to JCPOA.”

Rosen, a US diplomat held in the Tehran embassy in 1979-81, was on hunger strike in Vienna last week to demand that no agreement be reached over the Iranian nuclear program until US, British, French, German, Austrian and Swedish prisoners in Iran were released. He was joined by British-Iranian Anoosheh Ashoori, held in Tehran’s Ervin prison.

"I've spoken to a number of the families of the hostages who are extraordinarily grateful for what Mr Rosen is doing but they also are imploring him to stop his hunger strike, as I am, because the message has been sent," Malley said.