March 25, 2022
The negotiations on reviving the nuclear deal, just about to hit their first anniversary, are drifting and may end in collapse as opposition to any revival grows in the United States even while opposition seems on the decline within the Islamic Republic.
Three major sticking points of the past month have now reportedly been resolved—but it isn’t known what other issues are holding up a resolution of the talks.
One of the last major issues was Iran’s demand that the United States drop its designation of the Pasdaran as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” (FTO). Iran’s foreign minister said he was dropping that demand, at the behst of the Pasdaran, but the next day said he was misunderstood and the demand remains. So, just what is going on remains unclear.
The designation carries with it numerous sanctions. But US officials say the Trump Administration made the designation as a political statement of toughness although numerous laws and executive orders had already imposed so many sanctions on the Pasdaran that the official designation meant nothing in practical terms.
For example, the FTO designation’s main sanctions are to freeze any assets held in the United States by an organization so designated and to bar any US person or US business from conducting any transactions with such an organization. But those sanctions were imposed years earlier by other American sanctions announcements and would not go away even if the FTO designation were withdrawn.
In recent weeks, the Islamic Republic made removal of the designation a major demand and talked about it almost every day. The publicity sparked a counter reaction in the United States among Republicans but also many Democrats, such as Senators Ben Cardin of Maryland and Bob Menendez of New Jersey, the two most senior Democrats on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. The Biden Administration, which had appeared willing to scrap the designation, then got cold feet at being tabbed as weak and caving in to Iranian demands.
Finally, on March 26, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on state TV that the Pasdaran had backed off their demand, saying they were willing to continue being designated as terrorists if that was blocking agreement on reviving the nuclear deal.
That suggested the Pasdaran saw support for revival growing in Iran and did not want to be stuck with the blame if the talks failed.
However, the very next day, after an avalanche of criticism from hardliners, Abdollahian denied he had ever said Iran had backed off the demand to remove the Pasdaran from the FTO list. So, it appeared this issue is not resolved.
Earlier, there was another uproar. The Russians made some vague statements about wanting exemptions from the US sanctions that would continue under a revived agreement. The US accused Moscow of trying to create a means to sneak around US sanctions on Russia over Ukraine and said such talk was a non-starter.
The Russians quickly made clear they were only talking about preserving the special benefits they were given under the original deal such as buying the stockpile of enriched uranium that Iran cannot keep under a revived deal, and selling fuel to Iran for the Bushehr nuclear power plant. Washington then agreed to add a paragraph to the new text guaranteeing those points.
The third sticking point was Iran’s demand that Washington “guarantee” that the sanctions are removed in practice and not just on paper. That appeared to be a demand that Washington guarantee that European firms would sell goods to Iran. But Washington can’t do that, and most European firms are expected to keep considerable distance from Iran since it remains on the blacklist (along with North Korea) of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) for its failure to close its banking system to money laundering and to groups viewed as terrorist by the West—such as Hezbollah and Hamas.
But on March 13, Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said that issue had been resolved, without saying how.
Other issues have been mentioned in the past but just disappeared. For example, for months Iran demanded every few days that the US lift all sanctions that were imposed by President Trump after he withdrew from the agreement in 2018. The Biden Administration said it would remove all the Trump sanctions that were inconsistent with the 2015 agreement, but would not remove those allowed under the 2015 agreement namely sanctions having to do with human rights, missiles and terrorism. About a month ago, Iran just stopped talking about that.
Those were the only publicized sticking points remaining. But others are believed to remain. One is assumed to be an Iranian demand endorsed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi that Washington pledge that it will never leave the agreement again. But as Americans, Europeans and others have explained repeatedly to Iran, no American government can commit a future administration to any policy. Even treaties routinely have exit clauses that allow any party to resign, though they usually require advance notice of several months or even a year or two, before a party can actually exit a treaty.
Iran has reason to be concerned about another US withdrawal. On March 9, former Vice President Mike Pence said that if Republicans win the 2024 presidential election, they will “rip up any new nuclear deal on Day One.”
On March 21, State Department spokesman Ned Price said, “I want to be clear that an agreement is neither imminent nor is it certain.” He indicated the US was preparing actions to toughen sanctions enforcement if the talks collapsed.
But two days later, Foreign Minister Abdollahian struck a contrary note, saying “We are closer to a deal than at any other time.”
On March 27, chief US negotiator Rob Malley repeated what Price had said.
US, Iranian and European officials have often made comments on progress in the talks—comments that generally make it look like everyone in Vienna is attending a different set of negotiations.
In fact, officials within Iran have often contradicted each other. For example, on March 4, Abdollahian said Iran wanted a good deal and condemned the West for trying to “rush” to an agreement. Three days later, Ali Shamkhani complained that Washington was “delaying” making necessary decisions to wrap up the talks.
Perhaps, the most useful comment was made March 7 by Enrique Mora of the EU foreign policy staff, who tweeted that all the “expert level” talks had been completed, referring to the detail work done by careerists, and that what remained required decisions by political leaders. “The rest is noise,” he said bluntly.
Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that Iran has started converting a part of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium into molybdenum targets, material that can be used to produce medical isotopes (and can no longer be used to make bombs), which would reduce the volume of material to be sold to Russia.
And, in Congress, 49 of the 50 GOP senators signed a statement March 14 saying they would oppose any agreement the Biden Administration submits an interesting position considering there was no agreement and many Republicans have complained they know next to nothing of what is going on in the talks. Their statement said the Biden Administration “appears to have given away the store.” The 50th GOP senator, Rand Paul of Kentucky, said, “Condemning a deal that is not yet formulated is akin to condemning diplomacy itself, not a very thoughtful position.”
Within Iran, there is clearly a largescale tussle going on between proponents and opponents of a deal. In his Now Ruz address, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi endorsed the talks and hoped for a positive outcome a reversal of months of silence that was widely interpreted to mean that the boss wants an agreement.
The talks began April 7 of last year and have proceeded off-and-on again since then.