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Al-monitor – Iran nuclear talks enter final days
The buzz in Vienna is that an agreement to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or Iran nuclear deal, should get done this week — or it probably won’t get done at all.
- Iran Foreign Ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Monday, Feb. 28, that three issues remain to be resolved: the scope of sanctions relief, an IAEA investigation into uranium traces found at undeclared sites (which Iran considers politicized), and whether the United States can “guarantee” a deal.
- Reuters reports that Iran is also asking for the United States to lift the foreign terrorist organization (FTO) designation against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
- Ali Hashem, who has been reporting on the Vienna talks, tells Al-Monitor that Iran’s lead nuclear negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani, returned to Vienna from Iran this week “with a clear mandate originating from the top of the establishment in Tehran that no deal is better than a bad deal, hence the redlines shouldn’t be disregarded.”
- On March 1, Khatibzadeh tweeted that “a deal is at hand, if WH makes its mind. Iran is willing, but will not wait forever.”
- State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Monday that “we are prepared to walk away — if Iran displays an intransigence to making progress …”
Iranian official: No connection between Vienna talks and the Ukraine crisis
- Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a speech on March 1, “Iran advocates ending the war in Ukraine,” but “the root of the crisis … are the US policies that create crisis, and Ukraine is one victim of these policies.”
- “The war in Ukraine is an international relations earthquake, and the main players in this conflict are involved in a way or another in the talks with Iran over its nuclear program,” added Ali Hashem. “Iran could be reading the developments from two perspectives. One relates to tactical gains in the path of the negotiations; second, a futuristic view that anticipates a different world in the making.”
- A senior Iranian official, speaking to Al-Monitor off the record, said, “I don’t see any connection between the Ukraine crisis and the Vienna talks. It’s not in the interest of anybody to make such connection.”
Iran: the energy angle
The connection may be in the energy market with oil over $110 per barrel and natural gas prices hitting a new high in Europe. If there is an agreement in Vienna, Iran’s energy sector — in dire need of investment — would be open for business at a time the West is seeking to mitigate energy disruptions from the Ukraine conflict and sanctions on Russia.
- Iran has the fourth largest oil reserves in the world, behind Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Canada; Russia is eighth, preceded by Iraq, Kuwait and UAE.
- Iran has the second largest national gas reserves, behind only Russia.
