US Holds To Diplomacy As Nuclear Talks Drift On

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.

The hardliner paper wrote in an August 23 commentary that "all the claims about the nuclear agreement are lies and no sanctions are going to be lifted as a result of a deal" with Washington.

The Kayhan repeated its own rude rhetoric about the West in this commentary, calling Europe "a dog trained by the United States" and claimed that Europeans have turned to burning logs [as a result of fuel shortage caused by the war in Ukraine] and consuming rotten food [as a result of food shortage for the same reason]."

While parties are still negotiating to revive the 2015 agreement, JCPOA, Kayhan lashed out at its domestic supporters, mainly Iranian reformists, and wrote: "Weren't they saying every day that Iran was suffering a $100 million loss per day as the revival of the JCPOA was delayed? What has the Iranian economy gained after all that hurry to strike a deal?"

The hardliner daily accused the supporters of a deal with the United States of “throwing the country into a bottomless well."

Meanwhile the daily attributed the closure of several Iranian industrial plants to the nuclear deal while Iranian experts have said repeatedly that those firms were shut down after they were confiscated by the government and because inefficient government management pushed them into bankruptcy and closure.

Many politicians and pundits in recent days have argued that a nuclear deal is not a magic wand that will quickly fix Iran’s economic crisis. They pointed out that financial corruption and the government's inefficiency are responsible for up to 80 percent of the economic crisis in Iran and no breakthrough will happen unless those two problems are effectively tackled.

Incidentally, a report published on the same day in Didban Iran website in Tehran noted that more than half of government employees in Iran have been hired based on their connections, adding that more than 45 percent of government employees in Iran are inefficient as they lack the right skills.

Meanwhile, reformist politician Mehdi Ayati told Nameh News website in Tehran on Tuesday that the revival of the JCPOA will definitely have a positive impact on Iran's economy, but added that the agreement should facilitate Iran's ability to economically benefit from it.

In another development, Iran's nuclear Chief Mohammad Eslami said that "Iran will not accept Israel's positions as the agenda of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)." Reacting to safeguard questions raised by the IAEA and European and US negotiators' insistence on the need for Iran to respond to questions about enriched Uranium traces in several locations, Eslami said: "These accusations are not new, and Tehran has been responding to them for 20 years now." But did not say why Iran has failed to convince the IAEA.

In one of the latest developments regarding a possible agreement, Iran's Security Chief Ali Shamkhani told the press in Tehran that the Supreme Council of National Security which he heads, has had no resolution yet about the negotiations. He added that a possible agreement will be first approved by the SCNS before being put to vote at the parliament (Majles).