by Cyrus Yaqubi
The Iranian Vienna nuclear talk saga has become a tasteless pull and push game. Meaningless rounds of negotiations, statements of optimism or pessimism, countless photo ops and news conferences, tweets of this authority or that, saying the same things but using different words at different times, and truckloads of rhetoric, portray the current state of the Vienna nuclear negotiations.
How it all started
Let’s travel back to a few decades ago. Iran’s nuclear program began in 1950 with help from the United States. After much back and forth maneuvers, Tehran ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1970. In 2002, Iran’s main opposition group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), made a startling announcement at a press conference in Washington D.C. In this press conference, Mr. Alireza Jafarzadeh, the representative of the National Council of Resistance of Iran in the U.S., told the world that the Iranian government had a secret nuclear program and was building two nuclear facilities at Arak and Natanz, which later became the basis for an investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and sparked the curiosity over Iran’s true nuclear intentions that continues to this day.
Again in 2015, the representative of the National Council of Resistance of Iran in the U.S. held a press conference in Washington D.C. to announce they had acquired evidence of a secret facility, buried deep beneath the ground in the northeast suburbs of Tehran, engaged in uranium enrichment. They stated that their information came from “highly placed sources within the Iranian regime, as well as those involved in the nuclear weapons projects.”
The secretive nature of Iran’s nuclear development and Iran’s unwillingness to reveal the full scope of its program became one of the world’s most critical security issues, with fears centering on the overwhelming likelihood of Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. Between 2006 and 2015, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed eight resolutions on Iran’s nuclear program, including one in December 2006 imposing sanctions.
To curb the Iranian regime’s nuclear intentions, in July 2015, the Iran nuclear deal was reached by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, China, the European Union (E.U.), and Iran. The deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was supposed to resolve concerns about Iran’s nuclear program. However, all signs indicate that the JCPOA did not achieve its goals.
Where the new round of negotiations stand now
The eighth round of negotiations that started on Monday, December 27, 2021, went on for three days and took a break because of the new year, and is supposed to resume on Monday, January 3. The Iranian regime and a few of its allies expressed optimism over the progress of the recent talks. However, other parties in the negotiations did not share the same optimism. U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said that Tehran continues to “drag its feet.”
“The last couple rounds also started with new nuclear provocations and then were characterized by, in some cases, vague, unrealistic, unconstructive positions on the part of Iran,” he said during a phone briefing on Tuesday. “Iran has, at best, been dragging its feet in the talks while accelerating its nuclear escalation. We’ve been very clear that that won’t work. Iran needs exercise restraint in its nuclear program and add real urgency in Vienna,” Price added.
“This negotiation is urgent… We are clear that we are nearing the point where Iran’s escalation of its nuclear program will have completely hollowed out the [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action],” negotiators from Britain, France, and Germany said in a statement, referring to the 2015 nuclear deal. “That means we have weeks, not months, to conclude a deal before the JCPOA’s core non-proliferation benefits are lost,” they said.
It is reported that at this point, the Iranian regime has made three key demands:
1- All U.S. sanctions must be lifted, and no future sanctions must be imposed on the regime. This includes sanctions that are not related to its nuclear program.
2- Guarantees that no future administration will withdraw from the nuclear agreement.
3- Guarantees that companies that will enter trade deals with Iran will not exit Iran’s markets and will not be subjected to sanctions.
Experts are pointing out that Tehran’s demands are virtually impossible to meet, and with these demands, Iran’s negotiation team has pushed the talks into a possible deadlock.
Conclusion
The regime in Tehran has to make a decision, one way or another, and it seems time is no longer in its favor. It either has to comply with the international community’s demands and oblige itself to the terms of a new deal or continue down the path of hostility and confrontation. Considering the social and economic problems the regime is facing inside Iran, both paths will have consequences that will prove to be detrimental to the regime’s authoritarian and brutal rule. Even if a deal or sort of a deal with Iran is reached and we see handshakes and smiles, history tells us that the fabric of the Iranian regime is made from ample strands of lies, dception and lack of transparency. The international community has been stung by the lies of the regime in Tehran in the past, many times; allowing to be stung again is purely foolish.
This article was first published by irannewswire
Comments
Post a Comment