Iranian Pundits Voiced Optimism As Doha Talks Began

The Reform Front, an umbrella organization formed by several Iranian reformist parties, told Raisi that Iran's negligible economic growth rate and high inflation coupled with wrong economic and foreign policies have created the current crisis in the country.

The letter as published by Aftab News in Tehran, has been also sent to Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. In the letter, the Reform Front has accused the Raisi administration and the parliament (Majles) of failing to recognize the country's problems, determining priorities, and choosing the right solutions.

Iran’s reform movement is led by politicians and public figures loyal to the principle of having an Islamic government but are opposed to some of the radical policies of hardliners who follow Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. A reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, was elected in 1997 and served two terms until 2005, but hardliners gradually disarmed the reform movement and by 2020 pushed them completely out of power and even public service.

The Reform Front also warned that time is running out for addressing widespread dissent that seriously threatens Iran's security. The front also advised Raisi to work hard to improve per capita income and restore the people's purchasing power amid rising inflation and the constant devaluation of the national currency.

The letter added that despite government slogans of self-sufficiency, people's livelihood is tied to the fate of the 2015 nuclear agreement, the JCPOA. In the meantime, the government needs to reduce its irrelevant expenses by taking measures including cutting the budget of parallel institutions that duplicate the efforts of other organizations.

Meanwhile, the Reform Front charged that many of the measures the government pretends to be taking to solve the economic crisis, including increasing prices for essential commodities, are in fact initiatives that are solely meant to make up for its budget deficit, and are not serious efforts for structural change.

The Reform Front then offered six solutions for the country's economic problems. The first is reviving JCPOA and lifting of sanctions. This, said the letter, is the government's most important responsibility. The front advised Raisi "To seek the necessary permissions [from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei] and take quick brave measures to have this done in order to serve the country's national interests."

The letter also urged “détente” in foreign policy based on national interests and reconstituting Iran’s international banking ties, currently sanctioned by the United States, and blacklisted by the international financial watchdog, the FATF.

The Reform Front also called for boosting Iran's oil output within a short period of time with the objective of increasing government revenues and returning to the international oil markets as a key player. It also called of creating conditions favorable to international financial and technological investments.

Reformists also asked the government, dominated by hardliners, to reduce tensions within the country, as economic hardship and a harsh enforcement of religious dress code have unnerved the people and increased instability.

In fact, almost all proposed solutions can be summarized in the first suggestion: Returning to the JCPOA. All the other solutions proposed by reformists depend on reaching a nuclear agreement.

Enrique Mora, the European Union official who chaired year-long talks in Vienna aimed at reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (the JCPOA, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), is acting as a mediator between the teams led by Rob Malley, the United States special envoy, and Ali Bagheri-Kani, a deputy Iranian foreign minister.

Bagheri-Kani met Mora Tuesday in what signaled the beginning of the process, which is expected to last two or three days. With a wave of criticism in Tehran from critics of the 2015 deal and pundits generally cautious, IRNA has offered no information on these initial contacts.

Joseph Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief tweeted that “my team is as of today in Doha to coordinate and facilitate indirect exchanges between US and Iranian negotiators.” Borrell used the phrase “proximity talks.”

Reuters news agency last week cited an Iranian and European official that Tehran had signaled it might drop a demand for its Revolutionary Guards to be removed from the US list of ‘foreign terrorist organizations.’ There have for weeks been suggestions from analysts that the issue, which is contentious in both Tehran and Washington, could be kicked into the long grass.

Borrell, in a trip to Tehran accompanied by Mora, announced at the weekend a new phase in talks, which had up to mid-March been based in Vienna and involved the remaining JCPOA signatories – China, France, Germany, Iran, Russia, and the United Kingdom – with the US, which left the agreement in 2018, taking part indirectly through a team in a separate hotel.

Iran has apparently refused face-to-face talks with the Americans, both within JCPOA structures and the kind of informal contracts that led up to the JCPOA in 2015. Qatar – which has good relations with both Tehran and Washington, and is relatively distanced from JCPOA-opponent Saudi Arabia – has played a quiet role mediating between the two sides.

Mora and Borrell have both expressed guarded optimism over prospects while suggesting substantive issues remained. Mora last week tweeted a picture of himself, Borrell and Malley at dinner, over which the US envoy expressed what Mora called “firm US commitment to come back to the deal.”

In Tehran Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a vice-president under reformist president Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005), tweeted that “opportunities can go as quickly as passing clouds.”

In a communique from Elmau, Germany, the G7 (Group of Seven – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States) placed the onus on Tehran to take “the opportunity to conclude a deal.” They said the G7 was committed to “working together, and with other international partners, to address the threat posed to international security by Iran’s nuclear escalation.”

The leaders also called on Iran “to stop all ballistic missile activities and proliferation inconsistent with UNSCR 2231 and other UNSC resolutions.” United Nations Security Resolution 2231 both endorsed the 2015 nuclear deal – the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) – and called on Iran “not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons…” Iran says none of its missile are designed for atomic weapons.

The G7 also condemned “the continued human rights violations and abuses in Iran.” They called on Iran “to end arbitrary arrest and detention of foreign and dual nationals for the purposes of political leverage.” Foreign governments and human rights organizations have accused Iran of detaining foreigners to secure concessions.

G7 leaders urged Iran to provide “technically credible information” to the International Atomic Energy Agency over what the agency says are unexplained uranium traces in sites related to work before 2003.

The meeting signals the start of indirect talks between Iran and the United States to resolve their outstanding differences for restoring the 2015 nuclear agreement known as the JCPOA.

Mora has been the EU coordinator in the nuclear negotiations, that lasted 11 months in the Austrian capital Vienna and now are set to resume between Tehran and Washington in Doha.

The complicated negotiations aimed to restore the JCPOA that former US President Donald Trump abandoned in May 2018.

IRNA has so far not offered any details of what discussed between the Iranian and EU diplomats.

During a trip last weekend to Tehran the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell agreed with Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian to resume talks with the US, but the two sides changed the venue to Qatar.

The talks in Vienna came to a standstill in March apparently on Iran’s demand asking the US to remove its Revolutionary Guard from Washington’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The Biden Administration has so far not accepted the demand, but Iran has agreed to resume indirect talks with EU mediation.

With the change of venue, Russia and China, signatories of the JCPOA, apparently will not be present in the talks.

But Qatari optimism, which has seen the Persian Gulf state mediate in recent months, was not shared by United States and European officials, nor by opponents of the 2015 deal in Tehran.

The Virginia-based Politico news-site quoted a US official with “very low expectations” and two “senior Western officials” sharing the American’s pessimism and saying they expected the talks to last only two or three days.

In announcing the new round of talks while in Tehran Saturday, the European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said nuclear talks in Vienna had been suspended in March with both Iran and the US needing to answer “questions.”

Those talks – involving Iran, and six world powers including indirectly the US – reportedly reached a broad understanding of what was needed to revive the JCPOA but did not bring complete agreement over which US sanctions were incompatible with the 2015 deal, which the US left in 2018. Iran was particularly irked over the inclusion since 2019 of its Revolutionary Guards on a US list of sanctioned ‘foreign terrorist organizations.’

While there have been suggestions from analysts as to how such obstacles might be cleared, the US and Iran have continued to place the onus on the other to move.

Go-betweens

Enrique Mora, a senior EU official, chaired the Vienna talks and is expected to lead a team of European officials in Qatar acting as go-betweens for US and Iranian negotiators. Iran has refused to meet the US directly.

Qatar’s role may be less formal. The Persian Gulf state has good relations with both Washington and Tehran, and played a discrete but effective role in negotiations between the US administration of President Donald Trump and the Taliban that led to their 2020 agreement over US military withdrawal from Afghanistan.

But opponents of restoring the JCPOA are vocal in both Tehran and the US. In Israel, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has slammed military and intelligence leaders – including reportedly the head of military intelligence Major General Aaron Haliva– who favor the JCPOA.

It remains unclear whether the US encouraging Israeli-Saudi military cooperation as a way to reconcile the two states to a revived JCPOA, or as a genuine attempt to bolster a new regional defense architecture against Iran and its regional allies, including Hezbollah, and Ansar Allah in Yemen.

Last chance?

Some analysts see the Qatar talks as the last chance for the US and Iran to agree over bringing back the JCPOA.

Robert Malley, the US special envoy who leads the US negotiators in Qatar, told the Senate in May that the US would continue to work to restore the JCPOA as long as “we assess that the non-proliferation benefits of a return to the deal are worth the sanctions lifting we would need to provide.”

Critics of the JCPOA argue any benefits are running out. Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told a news conference in Vienna June 9 that, given Iran’s restrictions on agency monitoring, four weeks remained to restore enough inspector’s access to avoid a “fatal blow” to the IAEA’s ability to certify the Iranian nuclear program as peaceful. Iran began exceeding JCPOA limits in 2019, the year after the US left the agreement, and is now enriching uranium to 60 percent, far above the 3.67 percent allowed under the JCPOA.