The indirect talks to revive or rather reset the Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or the Iran nuclear Deal inked in Vienna on July 14, 2015 have kicked off. The talks are indirect because Iran is not willing to talk directly to the US. Therefore, it is for the European intermediaries to do the patching between Iran and the US. Discussions among the Joint Commission chaired by the European Union with representatives from Iran, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia that began talks on April 6 have been described as constructive. Two expert working groups have been formed aimed at a US-Iran compromise; sanctions US may lift and curbs that Iran may observe as a prelude to revive the deal. EU chief coordinator Enrique Mora tweeted: “I will intensify separate contacts here in Vienna with all relevant parties, including US.”
On April 5, US State Department spokesman Ned Price had stated, “We don’t anticipate an early or immediate breakthrough as these discussions, we fully expect, will be difficult,” America’s special envoy to Iran Robert Malley is representing the US in the indirect talks through the EU intermediaries. Iran does not expect any early results either. The talks are taking place in the backdrop of rising Iran-Israel tensions. A number of attacks took place against Iranian vessels suspected of shipping oil to Syria, which Iran responded including hitting an Israeli container ship in March. On April 6, an Iranian military vessel in the Red Sea was hit by Israel. Iran says the vessel had been stationed in the Red Sea to combat pirates in the area.
The talks on the nuclear deal are going to be a long haul because Iran wants the US to lift the sanctions first, its contention being that it is the US that first broke the deal. The US under Donald Trump had arbitrarily pulled out of the nuclear deal in 2018 and imposed sanctions on Iran at a time when according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Iran had not breached the deal. Trump had called it a maximum-pressure campaign involving restored and additional American sanctions.
However, with crippling sanctions and waiting in vain for the European signatories to persuade the US to return to the agreement and remove sanctions, Iran went for more uranium enrichment in May 2019. US President Joe Biden, who was vice president under Barack Obama when the JCPOA was signed in 2015, has said he wants to bring the US back into the nuclear deal. However, the Biden administration wants Iran returning to full compliance with the agreement’s limits before the US can contemplate lifting sanctions.
According to the Virginia-based US firm POLITICO, the US is planning to put forward a new nuclear deal proposal to Iran; asking Iran to stop ‘some of its nuclear activities’ in exchange for easing US economic sanctions. Details of the proposal are being worked out. However, Iran is unlikely to change its demand for the US first lifting the sanctions. Notably after the Joint Commission meeting in Vienna on April 6, Iran’s negotiator Abbas Araghchi said, “Lifting US sanctions is the first and the most necessary action for reviving the deal. Iran is fully ready to reverse its activities and return to complete implementation of the deal immediately after it is verified sanctions are lifted.”
Iran maintains its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. The Iranian Parliament has ordered the government to ensure production of 20 percent uranium for which centrifuges are being used. Iran is amenable to limited IAEA checks on its territory to the level of nonproliferation issues but rejects restrictions on production of fissile materials. More complications are expected from the US side seeking to limit Iran’s missile capability and curtail Iranian support to groups like Hezbollah. This is apparent from statements by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and signals emanating from the Biden administration. But if these too are included in the new proposals, it will make the exercise of reviving the nuclear deal that much more difficult, if not impossible.
Meanwhile, time is running out with the UN arms embargo on Iran under the JCPOA having already expired last year. Elections in Iran are due in June 2021 and Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Jawad Zarif has urged the US to act quickly as Washington may find it difficult to negotiate afresh with the next government. Significantly, Zaif had reiterated Iran’s position on April 2 by saying that no additional talks on the JCPOA are needed since the deal and its parameters have already been negotiated. Besides, Iran has declared on numerous occasions that linking extraneous issues like its missile program and its regional policies to JCPOA is totally unacceptable to it.
Meanwhile, Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for Iran’s civilian nuclear program recently stated that Iranian officials had begun mechanical testing of an IR-9 prototype centrifuge that would enrich uranium 50 times faster than the IR-1s allowed under the accord. As is apparent, the US wants to exert maximum pressure on Iran but bringing in additional issues considered “extraneous” by Iran may result in endless discussions. Washington would also do well in taking into consideration the recently concluded Comprehensive Strategic Partnership pact between Iran and China that brings both countries in tighter embrace for next 25 years. Mohammad Ghalibaf, Speaker of Iran’s Parliament announced in Parliament on April 4, “The Strategic Cooperation Agreement signed by Iran and China is a serious warning to the United States that international relations will no longer develop in their favor.” The US should remember that the first nuclear bomb of Pakistan was tested on Chinese soil.
The EU has veered to support the US view on resetting the nuclear deal as above. But there is also a view that the historical context in which the Iranian nuclear program is embedded is being ignored and that no consideration is given to the factors that led to Tehran launching its nuclear program in the first place. Besides, recall General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander, NATO had said on March 02, 2007, “While bombing of Afghanistan had commenced, I asked a General of Joint Staff, “Are we still going to war with Iraq?” And he said, “Oh, it’s worse than that.” He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, “I just got this down from upstairs” — meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office — “today.” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off with Iran.”
The ball apparently now is in the US court. But with the Biden administration’s declaration of cold war against China and Russia, pressuring Iran is not going to be easy, sanctions notwithstanding. If revival of the JCPOA is delayed inordinately, there is every chance of Iran going nuclear with the support of China.
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