August 08, 2014
In one of the stranger developments of the ongoing nuclear talks, Iranian officials have spent the last week loudly denouncing US negotiator Wendy Sherman and accusing her of lying when she said Iran had agreed to restrictions on the nuclear plants at Arak, Natanz and Fordo.
Abbas Araqchi, Iran’s dep-uty foreign minister and Sher-man’s opposite number in the talks, was asked last week by the Iranian
Students News Agency (ISNA) about remarks Sherman made about the negotiations.
Sherman testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee July 29. During that testimony, she explained what Iran had agreed to in the interim agreement that took effect last January 20. “It [Iran] promised not to fuel or install remaining components at the research reactor in Arak…. It allowed inspectors to have daily access at the Natanz enrichment facility and the underground plant at Fordo,” she said.
But Araqchi acted as if Sherman were describing the agreement now under negotiation with a target date of November 24 for completion.
“Any agreement about Arak or Fordo is denied,” he told ISNA. “No agreement has so far been reached about the issues under discussion, including those two sites, and the differences remain.”
Araqchi should certainly have known that Sherman was talking about the January agreement since he was a major figure in negotiating it.
After Araqchi spoke out to denounce Sherman, other officials, such as the outspoken chairman of the Majlis National Security Committee, Alaeddin Borujerdi, added their voices to the denunciations of Sherman with loud proclamations that nothing Sherman said had been agreed to.
Five days have now passed and Araqchi has not yet issued a correction or explanation. None of the media in Iran has pointed out Araqchi’s error. And others issue almost daily comments insisting that Sherman falsely characterized what has happened in the talks.
Majlis Deputy Esmail Kowsari issued a very confusing statement asserting that Sher-man’s testimony proved that Americans “make their decisions on the basis of the Zionist regime’s pressure.”
Some thought Araqchi knew exactly what Sherman had said but preferred to sound-off in a tough-guy manner as part of the continuing effort by the Foreign Ministry to establish its hard-nosed credentials with hardliners who suspect it of caving-in to the Americans under the slightest pressure.