Iran, US Presidents To Address United Nations Wednesday
Joe Biden and Ebrahim Raisi are due to address the United Nations General Assembly Wednesday but there will be no direct meeting between the two presidents.
Joe Biden and Ebrahim Raisi are due to address the United Nations General Assembly Wednesday but there will be no direct meeting between the two presidents.
Raisi in an interview last week with CBS’s ‘60 Minutes’ program ruled out a “face to face” with Biden in New York. On Tuesday he met French President Macron, who then reiterated to journalists that Paris expected Tehran to shift in talks over reviving the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), the 2015 UN-endorsed agreement lifting international sanctions and limiting the Iran nuclear program.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian met foreign ministers from Qatar, Lebanon and South Korea on Monday. Qatar’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani tweeted Tuesday they had discussed “the latest developments in the negotiations to return to the Joint Action Plan [sic] with the US.” The minister said he was “looking forward to our cooperative efforts in this regard.”
With talks apparently on hold to revive the JCPOA, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters Tuesday Washington did “not expect a breakthrough” at the UN General Assembly but was still “open to both sides resuming compliance with the accord.” US officials have argued that after 18 months of talks Iran has hardened its stance since early August.
While accepting that President Donald Trump’s 2018 decision to leave the JCPOA led Iran to expand its nuclear program beyond the agreement’s limits, the Biden administration has continued Trump-era sanctions, which target third parties globally, to weaken Iran. Raisi was himself sanctioned in 2019 under a Trump executive order over links to the office of Iran’s leader Ali Khamenei.
Raisi reiterates need for ‘guarantees’
Following his meeting with Macron, Raisi’s office said he had restated Iran’s belief the JCPOA could not be revived without the International Atomic Energy Agency ending enquiries into Tehran’s nuclear work before 2003. Raisi also reiterated as “reasonable and logical,” Iran’s demand for guarantees that it would be cushioned againstharmful fall-out should the US leave a revived JCPOA.
In a television interview Friday with the al-Jazeera network at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Samarkand, Raisi argued Iran was countering US ‘maximum pressure’ through developing economic links with “independent countries” and boosting its own domestic industry.
In The Hague, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN body known as the World Court, was told by Iranian lawyers Monday that the US had flouted international law in creating an “industry of litigation” against Tehran.
The case goes back to 2016, when Iran went to the ICJ after the US Supreme Court ordered $2 billion in Iranian assets seized and given to survivors, or relatives of those killed, in attacks including the 1983 Beirut bombing of US troops following the Israeli invasion. Washington holds Iran responsible. The court hearing continues until Friday.
Sabah Zanganeh, a relative of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, told conservative news website Nameh News that despite all the shuttle diplomacy between Washington and Tel Aviv, the United States has still not managed to deflect the pressures exerted by Israel.
Although the latest IAEA meeting has not issued a resolution against Tehran, Nameh News says that this does not mean an agreement is any closer.
Zanganeh added in his interview that threats made by some US senators has disheartened Biden officials and delayed decision making in Washington. He said under the circumstances, there is no point in signing an agreement as long as all the hindrances are not addressed.
Asked how these delays can affect Iran, Zanganeh said: "We have to see how controversial or even dangerous these delays can get." Nonetheless, he warned Tehran against "exerting excessive pressures on some issues.” He might have been referring to Iran's demand to shelve a demand by the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA’s for Iran to explain traces of uranium found in three undeclared sites.
Meanwhile, hardliner commentator Mohammad Sadegh Koushki also tried to explain the reason for the delay in reaching an agreement in an interview with Nameh News. Koushki said: "The Westerners insist on rigorous inspection of Iranian nuclear sites, but at the same time they are not prepared to offer any guarantees, and this is what has left the Vienna negotiations inconclusive."
Koushki reiterated, "It is simple: The Westerners wish to get concessions from Iran, but they refuse to reciprocate." He also criticized the West for once again raising the issue of PMD (possible military dimensions) in Iran's nuclear activities. "The matter was addressed in 2015 and the case was terminated then, but the West raised the issue once again during President Hassan Rouhani's Presidency," Koushki said.
Koushki claimed that "Rouhani accepted serious inspections on the condition that the PMD case would be terminated. If it weren't for that condition, there was no point in allowing the inspections. The West is still not prepared to guarantee that the case about PMD would be terminated," he said.
He reiterated, "The West wants us to sign an agreement in which we will definitely be the losing side." He added: "What the West wants is to allow Iran to export some oil to stabilize the international energy markets and solve the West's problems, but they are not offering anything more to Iran."
Koushki continued that under the circumstances, insisting on Iran's rights is the least the Raisi Administration can do. He added that Iran has already made a lot of compromises but allowing the nuclear dossier to remain open would be a gross loss for Tehran.
But others, such as international relations expert Ghasem Mohebali maintain that reviving the JCPOA depends on a major political decision Iran must make. Meanwhile, he added that continuing the nuclear program without any economic justification is not in Iran's interest, and if there is no profit for Iran in an agreement, the revival of the JCPOA would be impossible.
Mohebali said reaching an agreement would be possible if Iran concludes that the country’s development plans are more important than a nuclear program that not only does not have any benefits but can have destructive consequences for the economy.
As Joseph Borrell Wednesday said negotiations were in a “stalemate,” two thirds of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 35-nation member board signed a statement by the United States and three European states (France, Germany and the United Kingdom; the ‘E3’) pressing Tehran to satisfy the agency over unexplained uranium traces.
The statement, presented by Germany, called on Iran to “act immediately to fulfil its legal obligations.” Iran’s foreign affairs spokesman Nasser Kanaani said Thursday the move was “not constructive.”
The decision by the US and E3 not to raise a further resolution, following one passed in June, reflects their sense that success remains possible in talks to revive the 2015 agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). They may also judge that referring Iran from the IAEA board to the United Nations Security Council would achieve little and merely rile Tehran.
Wang Chang, deputy head of China’s IAEA mission, told the IAEA board Tuesday that with JCPOA talks resting on finding a solution to the ‘safeguards’ issue of the uranium traces, it was important to maintain perspective.
“Iran’s outstanding safeguards issues point to possible nuclear activities that took place decades ago, if at all,” Wang said. “There is neither urgency nor proliferation risk involved. Besides, the issue of the possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program was already concluded in 2015.”
Outlining the US approach, State Department spokesman Ned Price said Tuesday Washington had sent feedback on the latest Iranian input after a European Union text, designed to conclude 18-month talks, was circulated August 8. While Price described the Iranian input as “a step backwards in many ways,” he said it was “not too late to conclude a deal.”
In his remarks Wednesday, Borrell explained the current stalemate in terms of “the political situation in the US” and “so many [other] directions.” Some analysts argue President Joe Biden is wary of restoring the JCPOA before November 8 US Congressional elections, where the Democrats aim to retain control of the Senate and fear Iran emerging as a contentious issue in tightly-fought states.
Negotiators in New York
While no meetings on the JCPOA have been announced for the September 20-24 UN General Assembly, it is likely that Ali Bagheri Kani, Iran’s lead nuclear negotiator, Rob Malley, the White House special Iran envoy for Iran, and Enrique Mora, the senior EU official co-ordinating JCPOA talks, will all be in New York. President Ebrahim Raisi is also due to attend.
The UN’s general debate will offer not just opportunities for speeches aimed at world opinion but opportunities, some analysts suggest, for discrete discussions. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres Tuesday called for Iran to accept “serious dialogue” over JCPOA restoration.
An official with Prime Minister Yair Lapid in Germany said Monday that the JCPOA was dead, whereas Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Wednesday it was in “the ER room.”
JCPOA critic: ‘Iran is winning’
Gantz, like Borrell, referenced US domestic politics: “There’s a period maybe after the elections, we’ll see how it goes.” US officials talking to journalist Laura Rozen have played down what they see as Israeli attempt to scuttle JCPOA talks with Israeli elections due November 1.
US opponents of the JCPOA have also continued efforts. Congresspeople raised a motion in the House Wednesday that Biden disclose any documents on the nuclear talks. Senator Ted Cruz has proposed legislation banning Raisi from the US.
Richard Goldberg, senior adviser at the Federation for Defense of Democracies, tweeted Thursday a call for “snapback UN sanctions now” as Iran was “winning” – although the US, outside the JCPOA since 2018, cannot trigger ‘snapback’ sanctions against Iran over exceeding the deal’s nuclear limits.
Michael Rubin, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote Monday that talks should be paused and US sanctions maintained due to “rumors that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is on his deathbed.” Rubin has long argued against any talks with Tehran.