US, Israel Working To Set Up A Meeting Between Biden And Lapid

One remaining point of difference centers on Iran’s demand that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) shelve its enquiries into Tehran’s pre-2003 nuclear work. The US – backed by the ‘E3’ of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom – argued this is a separate issue from efforts to revive the 2015 deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).

The IAEA board of governors, made up of 35 member states, convenes September 12-16, three months after it passed a motion moved by the US and the E3 censuring Iran over its failure to satisfy the agency over unexplained uranium traces found by inspectors in sites used before 2003.

Bloomberg reported “officials familiar with the talks” Friday saying they thought it might take “several weeks” to resolve US-Iran differences centered on both the IAEA probe and Iran’s expectation that it be cushioned against adverse effects of the US once again leaving the JCPOA.

Oil prices

Bloomberg noted keen interest in the talks among both oil traders and politicians around the world wary over rising energy prices given the Ukraine crisis. Iran has at least 150 million barrels of oil in storage that could return to the market if the US eased sanctions under a revived JCPOA.

Iran said Wednesday it was reviewing a US response to Iran’s own response of August 15 to European Union proposals made August 8 aimed at concluding 16-month talks between Iran and world powers over restoring the JCPOA, from which President Donald Trump withdrew the US in 2018. US ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions prodded Iran in turn after 2019 to expand its nuclear program and restrict the access of IAEA inspections to those required under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty.

Rafael Mariano Grossi, the IAEA director-general, said this week in an interview with PBS that restoring the JCPOA would allow inspectors greater access – implying that the uranium traces might be more easily investigated with the 2015 agreement back in place.

But opponents of the JCPOA in the US may expect further action against Iran at the IAEA board meeting beginning September 12. Subsequent Republican gains in the November 8 mid-term elections would strengthen voice in Congress critical of the approach taken by President Joe Biden.

‘Credible military threat’

A White House statement Friday after a meeting between National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Benny Gantz, Israeli defense minister, said the two had discussed the “US commitment to ensure Iran never develops a nuclear weapon, and the need to counter threats from Iran and Iran-based proxies.”

Successive Israeli governments have opposed the JCPOA and efforts to restore it, while Israel is widely thought responsible for killing Iranian scientists and for attacks on Iranian nuclear sites – actions that led Iran to expand its nuclear program and restrict IAEA access.

Israeli journalist Barak Ravid tweeted Friday he had been informed by an Israeli official that Gantz had “reiterated the need for a credible US military threat against Iran.”

Gantz had welcomed, Ravid wrote, US airstrikes against targets in Deir al-Zour province Syria, which Washington said were a response to attacks on US forces in Syria ostensibly to combat the Islamic State group (Isis).But while Defense Secretary Colin Kahl framed the strikes as a response to “Iranian and Iranian-backed aggression,” the Biden administration rejects the Israeli leadership’s view that Iran’s support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad or Hezbollah in Lebanon rules out restoring the JCPOA.

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.

The media quoted France 24 Tehran reporter Ali Montazeri, as saying that while Iran wanted to preserve the current status of its nuclear enrichment so that it would be able to return to the existing status in case Washington violates its obligations under the JCPOA, Washington has rejected it and has said that Iran should reverse its nuclear program and return to the status it had in March 2015.

Also, while Iran wanted to dismantle its new generation centrifuges but keep them in storage for a possible return to the current situation, the United States wants all those centrifuges destroyed.

Iran has also called for an end to the IAEA'a enquiry about the origin of uranium traces in three sites, but the United States has rejected that demand too and wants Tehran to give a convincing explanation to the IAEA.

These differences are fundamental and will inevitably lead to continuation of indirect talks between Tehran and Washington with Europe acting as mediator.

In recent days Iranian officials seemed upbeat about the prospects for a deal, but on Thursday a website close to the supreme national security council said that Iran is studying the US response according to its “red lines” and will respond in due course without any time deadlines.

But, Mohammad Marandi who often speaks for the negotiating team, spoke optimistically about the United States' response. He said Thursday morning, "It is a mistake to say that the United States has given its final reply to Iran about the agreement." Marandi said he cannot elaborate on this, but everyone will find out that he was right when the deal is done.

However, the editor of Hardline daily Kayhan, which operates under the aegis of the office of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, wrote in a commentary on Thursday, which even Tehrsn media assessed it as being utterly rude to the United States, that the JCPOA was a golden document for the US and a catastrophic agreement for Iran.

Kayhan's editor, the firebrand Hossein Shariatmadari, criticized the Iranian negotiators, telling them, "You are making an agreement while the sanctions have not been lifted, the IRGC is still under sanctions and uranium enrichment has been suspended. He simply ignored the fact that the sanctions on the IRGC are not part of the contents of the deal and the other matters are supposed to be done after an agreement is signed.

He also charged that an agreement with the United States will put Iran's nuclear sites under the scrutiny of the CIA and Mossad. Meanwhile, Shariatmadari suggested that a mysterious group has infiltrated the Iranian nuclear negotiation team and said that the infiltrators are taking advantage of Iran's emergency economic situation to undermine its national interests and security.

While Khamenei has been conspicuously silent about the negotiations and a possible agreement, it is not quite clear why his representative at the Kayhan is taking such a hard line about an agreement most Iranian politicians seem to support. It is likely that either he is too sure that Khamenei will shout at the negotiators sooner or later, as he has usually done, or simply tries to appease Khamenei by portraying himself as an ardent hardliner.

The website known for reflecting the views of the Supreme National Security Council secretary Ali Shamkhani, also asked why the European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has stayed silent about the nature of the US response.

When Iran responded in writing to an EU draft text on August 15, Borell characterized it as “reasonable” earlier this week. Nour News says that the EU diplomat should also say what he thinks of the US response, and whether Washington’s answers are reasonable or not.

US officials have been quoted as saying that the Biden Administration has rejected three Iranian demands.

The website says that Iranian experts are reviewing Washington’s response and Tehran will take the necessary time to carefully weigh everything according to its “red lines.” It added that in this process Iran will not consider any time limitations, in the same way that in the past it ignored deadlines set by the West.

In the end Nour News reiterates Iran’s position that it will accept an agreement that in addition to guaranteeing its legal rights, also ensures Iran’s “peaceful nuclear activities and ends unfounded safeguards issues. The agreement should also secure Iran’s economic interests, in a “trustworthy and guaranteed” manner.