While most Iranian offi-cials have neither en-dorsed nor rejected the tentative nuclear agreement reached two weeks ago in Switzerland, one surprising official has endorsed it outright—Major General Mohammad-Ali Jafari, the commander of the Pasdaran.
Jafari said Sunday that “the enemy” has accepted all of Iran’s core demands and all that remains is to clarify the removal of sanctions. The United States has also said that a schedule for removing sanctions was not resolved when the tentative agreement was adopted April 2.
The Fars news agency reported that Jafari said, “Some solutions have been found and it seems the Islamic Republic’s principles and red lines in technical aspects have been accepted on the part of the enemy.”
He added, “However, there are still ambiguities regarding the manner of sanctions removal, which should be clarified, but which could lead to disagreement, too.”
Aside from President Rohani and the negotiating team, he is the first Iranian official to embrace the agreement—a very surprising endorser. Given his position in the regime, he may well influence others.
So far, most officials have avoided either endorsing or rejecting the agreement. The standard rhetoric has been to laud the negotiating team and express support for their efforts while sidestepping the core issue of whether they accept the language of the tentative agreement.
Jafari said Iran’s redlines in the talks with the world powers include the acceptance of Iran’s right to possess a full nuclear enrichment cycle as well as research and development in this field besides the lifting of all nuclear-related sanctions against Tehran.
“Should the negotiating team move within the determined frameworks and the principles of the establishment up until the end, whatever outcome results from negotiations is victory for the revolutionary nation of Iran,” Jafari said.