US, Israel Working To Set Up A Meeting Between Biden And Lapid
US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid are likely to meet in September as an agreement to restore the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran appears nearer.
US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid are likely to meet in September as an agreement to restore the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran appears nearer.
Israel’s Kan news, citing unnamed officials, reported on Saturday that the two sides are discussing the meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. World leaders often hold bilateral meetings while attending the annual event.
As negotiations to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) are advancing, Israel is increasingly criticizing the impending deal for being too weak to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz visiting Washington met with National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan to discuss the issue.
Speaking to leading Washington think tanks, Gantz said on Saturday that “improvements are necessary” in the new nuclear agreement.
“Iran has gained knowledge, infrastructure and capabilities” in recent years, Gantz said, “much of which is irreversible.”
According to Times of Israel he added, “this will enable Iran to further expand its nuclear program during the period of an agreement that would have fewer restrictions.” And Iran “would be able to acquire a nuclear weapon when said agreement would end in 2031.”
He emphasized that “Improvements are necessary in the nuclear agreement in discussion – with an emphasis on the ‘sunset’ clause.”
Iran is currently reviewing a US response to its position earlier sent to the European Union, which acts as a mediator between the two sides.
The ultra-conservative Kayhan newspaper affiliated with the Supreme Leader’s office, once again on Saturday raised objections to the nuclear deal being finalized. The paper expressed dissatisfaction that “not all sanctions are supposed to be lifted.” It also protested that the US terrorist designation for the Revolutionary Guard will remain in place, and “worst of all”, there will be no meaningful guarantees for Iran.
A former vigilante group leader who often talks to Iranian media including the state television as "an academic and political analyst" says an agreement with the United States is "absolutely impossible" without first lifting the sanctions on Iran.
Sadegh Kushki told Didban Iran news website on Friday, August 26, that the United States is not in a position to give ultimatums or determine deadlines for Iran. He added that Iran's hardliners will not be happy with anything less than the terms of the 2015 nuclear agreement (JCPOA).
In yet another controversial statement, Kushki said, verification of the United States' commitment to the JCPOA should come before an agreement.
He repeated the government’s demand that a nuclear agreement should bring an economic breakthrough for Iran. He also reiterated that Iran will never accept to be committed to the terms of any agreement without making sure that Iran's economy will to benefit from the deal.
Many Iranian pundits and politicians have been arguing in recent weeks that removing the US sanctions will have a marginal impact since governance and the economic system need structural reforms.
According to Didban Iran, exchanging responses to EU's proposal by Iran and the United States suggested an imminent revival of the JCPOA, but as Russian diplomat Mikhail Ulyanov has said, the back-and-forth process could further prolong the negotiations.
Kushki, blaming Saudi Arabia for lack of an agreement so far, added that Arab states wish to exacerbate differences between the parties to boost international pressures on Iran.
In another development, Tehran's Friday prayer Imam, Ahmad Khatami claimed that the differences between Tehran and Washington are not about nuclear issues. "America has a problem with the Iranian regime," Khatami said, adding that "America's problem with Iran is that the Islamic Republic has a popular leader and whatever he says, the people will accept."
Khatami, seen as a firebrand loyalist of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, claimed that the United States has been conspiring against Iran during the past four decades and suggested that Iran should be resilient and continue to become stronger.
He went on to say that Iran's main demands in the negotiations are the lifting of US oil and banking sanctions. While reports in Iran and abroad maintain that Iran has relinquished some of its previous demands, Khatami reiterated that Iranian negotiators will not give any further concessions to the United States.
At the same time, while moderates at the Iranian parliament such as Jalil Rahimi Jahanabadi of the National Security Committee has said that many hurdles have been removed and a deal will be finalized within the next ten days, hardline lawmakers, including Ali Khezrian of the ultraconservative Paydari Party have claimed that the draft agreement contains many flaws and the issues of guarantees and verification are missing in the new agreement.
There had been “a lot of progress in discussions and text editing” over some months, noted Amir-Abdollahian in remarks reported from his meeting with President Hossein Movini.
Tehran is currently reviewing a United States response submitted August 24, following Iran’s August 15 input, to a text circulated by the European Union August 8 in efforts to renew the 2015 agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Amir-Abdollahian reiterated Thursday in Tanzania that Iran was “very serious about the remaining issues of safeguards” as with a revived JCPOA “political and baseless accusations” could later be “stuck like a bone in a wound.”
The foreign minister was apparently referring to Iran’s hope that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would drop an enquiry into Iran’s nuclear work before 2003. Tehran argues the IAEA completed these investigations in 2018, and revived them only after allegations made by Israel in 2018 to undermine the JCPOA.
The US, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom in June successfully moved a resolution at the IAEA Governing Board backing the agency in seeking further explanations from Iran over uranium traces found by inspectors apparently working on information provided by the Israelis. The US and three European states argue Iran, regardless of the JCPOA talks, should satisfy the agency as part of its ‘safeguards’ commitment under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty.
Some JCPOA opponents in the US argue that the Biden administration, despite public assurances, has accepted Iran’s demand that the IAEA probe be shelved. Omri Ceren, an advisor to Republican senator Ted Cruz, tweeted Thursday that the US side had “collapsed” on the issue.
Another JCPOA critic, former ambassador to Israel David Freidman, tweeted that the US was “insane” and heading down a “rabbit hole” in not insisting on inspection of Iran’s military sites – which is not an IAEA responsibility.
But French President Emmanuel Macron, who in a meeting with IAEA chief Rafael Mariano Grossi Thursday stressed France’s commitment to the agency’s work, said Friday in Algeria that the “ball in is Iran’s court” over JCPOA revival.
In a further indication of Iran and the US inching closer after 16 months of talks to revive the JCPOA, which President Donald Trump abandoned 2018 in imposing ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions, Jalil Rahimi Jahanabadi, a member of the Iranian parliament, said Friday there was a high probability of agreement within ten days.
Assurances, bad faith and patience
Jahanabadi, who sits on the parliament’s national security committee, said Iran had been largely successful in obtaining guarantees – both over its nuclear program and sanctions – should the US again leave the JCPOA. Earlier in August, Jahanabadi had stressed the importance of such assurances.
Reporting of the negotiations has suggested Iran has looked to mothball, rather than destroy, more advanced centrifuges it could then quickly deploy after any US withdrawal. Tehran would also like assurances over a pause in the reimposition of US sanctions after any future withdrawal.
In several cases,” said Jahanabadi, “the parties still have minor differences of opinion, but for Iran, as a country that has witnessed the bad faith of the United States and its withdrawal from the JCPOA, it is very difficult to renew an agreement without any guarantees and a guarantee of firm implementation.”
Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s ambassador to the IAEA, tweeted Thursday an appeal for patience all round. “It may be regrettable but participants have the right to ask for changes to the text in accordance with normal practice of multilateral diplomacy,” he wrote.
