Iran Says Contacts With EU Continue Over Stalled Nuclear Talks
Iran says contacts with European Union continue to plan for the resumption of nuclear negotiations, including discussion on a date and venue for the talks.
Iran says contacts with European Union continue to plan for the resumption of nuclear negotiations, including discussion on a date and venue for the talks.
Foreign ministry’s new spokesperson Naser Kanani in his first weekly briefing with reporters said that chief negotiator Ali Bagheri-Kani is in touch with European Union’s coordinator of the talks Enrique Mora. He added that if the “other sides are committed to multi-lateral talks, Iran is also ready to follow that path.”
The latest round of unsuccessful negotiations took place in Doha, Qatar at the end of June. Bagheri-Kani held ‘proximity talks’ with his US counterpart Robert Malley through Mora, still refusing to meet the Americans in direct talks.
It was not clear if Kanani’s reference to “multi-lateral talks” meant that Tehran does not want negotiations just with the West and wants to bring back China and Russia to any future talks.
President Ebrahim Raisi, however, sounded defiant on Wednesday saying Iran will not retreat from its "rightful and logical" stance in talks to revive the 2015 nuclear pact, state media reported.
Almost one year of negotiations in Vienna ended at an impasse in Vienna in March. Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France and Germany, the participants of the 2015 nuclear deal known as JCPOA were holding sessions with Iran. The United States was present on the sidelines, although it was the main protagonist in the complicated process of restoring the JCPOA.
Kanani repeated Iran’s demand of guarantees for its economic benefits if an agreement is reached. The US has agreed to left major economic sanctions, but Iran is insisting on all sanction imposed by the former US administration to be removed, including terrorism penalties imposed on companies, individuals and the Revolutionary Guard.
The foreign ministry spokesman also dismissed statements by President Joe Biden published last week in The Washington Post, that said the US will keep up economic and diplomatic pressure on Tehran until it is will to reach a nuclear agreement.
Biden also said that his administration has been able to deter attacks by forces aligned with Iran in the Middle East.
Kanani engaged in a long monologue, accusing the United States of bringing instability to the region and said that Biden had no right to accuse Iran or its allies of sowing discord in the region.
Kanani also responded to Israeli statements about having the right to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. He retorted that Israel has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treat (NPT) and has a large stockpile of nuclear weapons, so it has not right to accuse Iran’s “peaceful nuclear program” of having any military dimensions.
Iran began its nuclear program in 1990s secretly until its existence was revealed in 2002. Some aspects of that secret phase still remain unexplained and the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors overwhelmingly censured Tehran in its June meeting.
Kanani repeated the Iranian threat of a “decisive response” to any Israeli action that would be “regretted by the Zionist regime.”
The publication of Rafsanjani's memoires started when he was still alive, and several volumes came out during the years before his suspicious death in 2017. All the volumes thatwere published after his death were examined by his son Mohsen before publication.
According to Chand Sanieh [A few seconds) website, which first published the new, unpublished parts are about Rafsanjani's angry reaction to unltraconservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "radical behavior". Rafsanjani believed this offered “a pretext” to the United Nations Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran and form a global consensus against the Islamic Republic in 2006, one year after Ahmadinejad was first elected as Iran's President.
It was the re-publication of the memoires by moderate conservative website Khabar Online on July 10 that lent some credibility to the disclosures about the beginning of Iran's isolation in the international community as a result of its secret and controversial nuclear program.
Rafsanjani wrote on March 21, 2006, that "factional disputes in Iran and the dismissal of efficient diplomats as well as uncalculated remarks by Ahmadinejad about uranium enrichment, human rights and terrorism provided an opportunity for the United States and its allies to portray Iran as a threat to the international community."
In November, Rafsanjani wrote about his visit to the enrichment site in Natanz, adding that "Even Hassan Rouhani who is usually skeptical about these matters acknowledged that the efforts have been successful. Both Rouhani and I told -then – nuclear Chief Mohammad Aghazadeh that Ahmadinejad's uncalculated remarks hinder Iran's progress."
On December 11, Rafsanjani noted that the UN Security Council has unanimously ratified a resolution against Iran with even Qatar voting for it. "Ali Larijani [then secretary of the Supreme Council of National Security] came to see me. He was nervous and critical of Ahmadinejad because of his uncalculated remarks. He said he told the President to stop two of the enrichment cascades to avert the resolution, but he refused to do so. He has told Ahmadinejad to go and seek Khamenei's view about this."
Rafsanjani wrote on March 20, 2007: "We have a bad situation in foreign relations. We have been isolated except for relations with a few countries including Syria and Venezuela. Two resolutions have been issued against us and a third one is coming. Sanctions have been imposed on Iran anda US military attack is probable."
Rafsanjani was a major advocate of Iran's nuclear program and missile development since late 1980s when he realized that the armed forces were not capable of resisting Saddam Hussain's army. Iran's declining arsenal from the pre-revolutionary days under the monarchy and its lack of an effective air force and navy made it vulnerable in the region.
In 2006, when these parts of his memoires were written, his once deep influence in the Iranian political system had been indirectly curtailed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and he was on course to his final isolation in 2009, when Ahmadinejad became Iran's President for the second time in a rigged election marked by IRGC intervention.