Europe, US Discuss Iran As Ex-US Official Calls For Threat Of Force
France, Germany and the United Kingdom said Saturday they were consulting “international partners” on “how best to address Iran’s continued nuclear escalation.”
France, Germany and the United Kingdom said Saturday they were consulting “international partners” on “how best to address Iran’s continued nuclear escalation.”
A statement from the ‘E3’ said Tehran had chosen not to take the “critical diplomatic opportunity” offered by a text circulated August 8 by the European Union in an effort to conclude 18-month talks to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).
A statement from United States foreign affairs spokesman Ned Price Friday said Secretary of State Antony Blinken had briefed the E3 foreign ministers on his Ukraine visit and that they had “discussed the challenges posed by Iran and our commitment to working together to address them.”
Since the EU draft was circulated August 8, there has been a series of diplomatic exchanges between Iran and the US that have failed to resolve remaining differences over JCPOA revival.
The E3 statement highlighted this week’s report from the IAEA director Rafael Mariano Grossi that he had made no progress with Iran in explaining the uranium traces since the IAEA managing board in June passed a resolution, drawn up by the US and the E3, censuring Tehran. Saturday’s E3 statement reiterated that Iran needed to “provide technically credible answers,” regardless of the JCPOA talks, because of its “legally binding obligations” under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty.
Tehran has argued the IAEA probe is politically motivated, and results from allegations made by Israel in 2018 as Trump withdrew the US from the JCPOA. In December 2015, Iran argues, the IAEA had produced a final report on Tehran’s pre-2003 nuclear work.
But while the E3 and US statements referred to continuing consultation, neither suggested what steps might be taken at the next IAEA board. Russia and China have both said that pursuing the matter, even back in June, was unhelpful to the JCPOA talks, and both countries hold vetoes at the United Nations Security Council should the E3 and US seek to refer Iran there.
The pause in the JCPOA talks has heightened focus on the Biden administration’s approach. It has stoked debate in Israel as it approaches a November 1 election. Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu is highlighting Iran to undermine Prime Minister Yair Lapid after David Barnea, head of the extraterritorial force Mossad, gave August press briefings critical of Biden, with whom Lapid has sought to coordinate.
Ross: US must ‘make clear’ it will act
Opponents of the JCPOA in the US have also gained momentum. Dennis Ross, who has held senior positions in Republican and Democratic administrations and maintains a skeptical view of the JCPOA while acknowledging it curbed Iran’s nuclear program, this week published a piece in Foreign Policy arguing that even if the 2015 agreement were revived, “Iran after 2030 [when some JCPOA clauses expire] would be in a position to move quickly to a bomb unless Iranian leaders come to believe that the cost of doing so is too high.”
Given Iran had acquired “nuclear know-how” and had become “a threshold nuclear weapons state” since Trump left the JCPOA and Iran expanded its nuclear activities, Ross wrote, Washington needed to make clear to the Iranian leadership that “the United States will act at a certain point and take out their entire nuclear infrastructure.”
While the Biden administration, and the E3, have never ruled out military action, Ross’s argument was that Iran’s leaders “do not believe Washington will ever use force against them.” This, he wrote, the US can and should change.
In Washington the United States national security spokesman John Kirby said President Joe Biden had told officials to make sure that, should efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal fail, “we have other available options to us to potentially achieve that solid outcome of no nuclear weapons capability for Iran.”
While Kirby was reiterating existing policy, and did not elaborate what these options might be, the French foreign ministry spokesperson Anne-Claire Legendre concentrated on what may be an issue at the September 12-16 board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Legendre said France was consulting with “partners” on how to proceed after an IAEA report circulated Wednesday said there had been no progress in discussions with Tehran since agency director-general Rafael Mariano Grossi in June reported as inadequate explanations given by Tehran over uranium traces found by inspectors.
Iran had not “seized the opportunities” offered by the IAEA to “engage and shed light on the presence of non-declared nuclear materials at non-declared sites,” Legendre said. Following Grossi’s June report, France joined Germany, the United Kingdom, and the US in successfully moving a resolution at the IAEA board censuring Iran.
Whatever the “other options” raised by Kirby, the US and the three European states, the ‘E3’ may opt to tread lightly at the board so as not to scupper remaining hopes for reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).
While the E3 and US insist that the uranium traces are unrelated to JCPOA revival and instead a basic Iranian commitment under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Tehran has repeatedly said the IAEA enquiry into the uranium, which relates to work before 2003, must be dropped before the JCPOA is revived
Will the IAEA board escalate?
The US and E3 may not want to escalate matters at the IAEA board by referring Iran to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), as happened in 2005 when the UNSC went on to impose multilateral sanctions. Russia and China voted against the June resolution at the IAEA board on grounds it undermined diplomacy over JCPOA revival, and both hold UNSC vetoes.
Russia’s IAEA ambassador, Mikhail Ulyanov, this week said another board resolution would be “extremely counterproductive.” As the E3 has edged closer to the Biden administration, Russia and China have maintained that an onus in the talks lies on the US, whose previous president Donald Trump left the JCPOA in 2018 and imposed ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions on Iran.
While analysts increasingly believe that the JCPOA talks are on hold until the November 8 US Congressional elections, Iran’s nuclear program continues to expand. The IAEA’s latest quarterly report showed Tehran’s stocks of highly enriched uranium of 60 percent purity at 55.6 kg, and its overall uranium stockpile at 3,941 kg. Under the JCPOA, Iran is allowed to enrich only to 3.67 percent and to hold 300 kg. Tehran has also recently brought into use more advanced centrifuges banned under the JCPOA.
Malley briefing Congress 14
Both supporters and opponents of the JCPOA in the US say this expansion confirms their views. Rob Malley, the White House special Iran envoy who is due to give a confidential briefing to the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs committee September 14, has argued both that agreement is close and that restoring the JCPOA is the most effective way to curb Iran’s nuclear program.
Critics of the agreement point to reported concessions offered by Washington that would ease the JCPOA’s nuclear restrictions, and they bemoan the billions in frozen overseas assets Iran would regain with the easing of ‘maximum pressure.’ Senator Tommy Tuberville, a Republican, this week criticized efforts to revive the agreement as motivated by a desire to “get Iranian oil to Europe.”