Blinken Dismisses Russian Demand To Waive Ukraine Sanctions For Iran

The public relations manager of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Mehdi Salem, made the announcement in twitter on Saturday.

He said that according to the country’s network operations center, this “400 gigs” were provided by Russia’s largest digital services company Rostelecom through Ukraine and has been cut off since Saturday evening.

Salem added that since the network routes from Ukraine remain disrupted and takes a long time to reconnect, the ministry is seeking to establish alternative links through other international routes.

As Ukraine's internet service has been disrupted by Russia's invasion, Elon Musk’s company SpaceX has activated global satellite internet constellation Starlink for the Ukrainians.

Internet services on mobile phones and landlines were also disrupted Friday morning in the Iranian capital Tehran and the nearby city of Karaj.

The Iranian government has been blocking thousands of websites and top social media apps for years in a bid to control the flow of information.

Iranians were outraged last week when a group of 18 hardliners in a parliament committee claimed that they had ratified a bill to further restrict internet and social media access.

Some people reacted to the Friday disruption by blaming the authorities, saying the outage was a trial run for the plan to further restrict internet and social media.

Also, a well-known academic in Tehran says Putin is "unpredictable" and "has done more harm to himself than to those he considers his enemies." He has called on Iranian officials to distance themselves from Putin.

This comes while Iran's top officials’ including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi have expressed support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine blaming the United States for the crisis.

Hossein Alaei, the former chairman of the IRGC joint staff (1997-2000) and commander of Iranian navy (1985-1990), has written in an article that although the war in Ukraine has so far served the interests of the US and China, it has caused a disgrace for Russia's “dictator Putin”. The article was published in Jamaran website, close to Iran's reformists and managed by Hassan Khomeini, a grandson of the founder of the Islamic Republic.

Alaei said that the war will last long with long-term implications for the people of Russia and Ukraine. He opined as a result of the war the people of Russia will look forward to an end to Putin's presidency.

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General Alaei stressed that ten days after the start of the war, Putin is now entangled in the quagmire of the occupation of Ukraine and cannot save himself from the trouble he has created. He added that thanks to the resistance by Ukrainians and the alliance of Europe and the United States against Russia, Putin finds himself in a tough situation. "Although it is too early to talk about the outcome of this war, one can imagine that it is a war of attrition to last for a long time," he added.

Assessing possible outcomes of Putin's action, Alaei said that despite the destruction of infrastructures and the displacement of nearly a million Ukrainians, reinforcement of Europe's military capabilities and solidarity between the EU and the US, as well as the expansion of NATO will be the consequences of this war. Meanwhile, Alaei warned that the Islamic Republic should understand and condemn Russia's aggression more than any other country as it has already experienced the Soviet Union's support for Saddam Hussain in his war against Iran.

In an Interview with the reformist daily Arman on Sunday, Iranian academic Pirouz Mojtahedzadeh called on Iranian officials to distance themselves from Putin. Mojtahedzadeh, a political scientist, quoted other academics as saying that Putin might even resort to using Russia's nuclear power if the conflict in Ukraine further intensifies.

However, he said Putin does not hold all the power in Russia and there are others around him who are watching his moves. They know that using nuclear weapons will do more harm to Russia than to other countries. However, he said that Putin has gone beyond the realm of logic and wisdom. He added that his behavior reminds everyone of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussain when he launched his invasion of Kuwait.

Mojtahedzadeh charged that Putin has lost his self-control under immense international pressure following the invasion of Ukraine. "I believe the sanctions imposed on Russia by the US and EU will destroy Russia," Mojtahedzadeh said, adding that, "Perhaps someone wishes to mess with the global balance of power. But this is no joke. No country can eliminate this balance."

Assessing Iran’s reaction to the war in Ukraine, Mojtahedzadeh said: "I have already warned that Iran should not look for unilateral relations with Russia and should prove this to the world by sticking to UN resolutions."

"[Russian Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov's demands are way above nuclear cooperation [allowed by the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran]," the diplomat who spoke to Iran International in Vienna on condition of anonymity said.

Lavrov said Saturday that international sanctions against Russia had created "problems from the point of view of Russia's interests" regarding the restoration of the 2015 deal, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and that sanctions on Russia could complicate Moscow's involvement in Tehran's civilian nuclear program as well as arms sales to Iran.

The diplomat said that Russia's envoy in the Vienna talks, Mikhail Ulyanov, had first raised the issue of Ukraine sanction only in relation to Moscow's role in a possible nuclear deal with Tehran, but Lavrov's remarks went much farther, demading a wider exemptions in dealings with Iran.

Lavrov said that Russia and China would be able to help Iran develop its civilian nuclear program in line with non-proliferation rules and should be free to do so without the threat of recent sanctions imposed for Russia’s attack on Ukraine. But he demanded written guarantees from the US, at the minimum level of Secretary of State, that the Ukraine-related sanctions by the US would not in any way harm Russia's "right to free, fully-fledged trade and economic and investment cooperation and military-technical cooperation with Iran".

"The new Russia-related sanctions are unrelated to the JCPOA and should not have any impact on its potential implementation," a State Department spokesperson said Saturday adding that Washington continues to engage with Russia on a return to full implementation of the JCPOA. "Russia shares a common interest in ensuring Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon. "

Iranian officials have not shown any reaction to Lavrov's remarks but somemedia in Tehran and many Iranian social media users interpreted Lavrov's remarks Saturday as "blackmail" and "taking the JCPOA hostage" to secure Russia's own interests.

The diplomat added that Lavrov's remarks Saturday would pose an important political obstacle to Vienna talks if what Moscow wants is lifting some of the sanctions imposed on it for its invasion of Ukraine.

It is widely assumed Russia would play a central role in implementing a revived JCPOA, including shipping out enriched uranium currently held by Iran exceeding JCPOA limits. On Saturday the Russian envoy to the talks, Mikhail Ulyanov, said he had met with Enrique Mora, the EU Coordinator at the Vienna talks, and raised several questions that have to be addressed at this stage 'to ensure smooth civil nuclear cooperation with Iran".

The European diplomat also told Iran International that besides Lavrov's new demand, the two issues that Iran has been insisting on – economic guarantees from the US to ensure sanctions are lifted and delisting the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as a terrorist organization – have remained unresolved so far.

Two diplomats, one of them not directly involved in the talks, told Reuters on Saturday that China has also demanded written guarantees that its companies doing business in Iran would not be affected by US sanctions.

Talks in Vienna between Iran and world powers, including Russia, to restore the JCPOA have now reached a critical stage with most sides saying an agreement could be reached within days.

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy and House Foreign Affairs Committee Lead Republican Michael McCaul published the letter to Blinken on Saturday, saying “We are alarmed that the Biden Administration may be preparing to evade the clear requirements of the law by pretending that a new deal is somehow a ‘continuation of’ or ‘return to’ the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that was submitted to Congress back in 2015.”

“That would be an absurd and lawless claim. Any deal the Administration concludes cannot be a return to the original JCPOA. The United States withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018”, they said.

They expressed urgent concern that “the Administration is working through Russian intermediaries to finalize an Iran nuclear deal without submitting it for Congressional consideration, as required by law”.

The lawmakers said the agreement would hand tens of billions of dollars to “the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism” and remove sanctionson “terrorists with blood on their hands”, which would require Congressional review.

Republicans have consistently opposed President Joe Biden’s policy of reviving the JCPOA and lifting sanctions imposed by former president Donald Trump.

They said Iran has violated JCPOA limitations in numerous cases, including producing equipment for advanced centrifuges and stockpiling uranium enriched at 20% and 60% purity, noting such violations make it impossible to simply “return” to the 2015 deal.

Rafael Mariano Gross, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, expressed agreement that Iran would by March 21 provide written answers to the agency over “outstanding issues” in Iran’s nuclear program.

But Grossi made it clear that the implementation of a new nuclear agreement would depend on Iran's satisfactory cooperation with IAEA>

There had been reports over the past week that Tehran’s failure to satisfy the IAEA over the issues relating to secret nuclear work carried out before 2003 – might derail talks in Vienna aimed at reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). There had been speculation that Iran had demanded as a condition for agreement in Vienna that the IAEA drop these enquiries.

But with many participants saying talks are at a closing stage, the timeline agreed in Tehran Saturday by Grossi and Eslami − whatever informal understandings the two may have reached − suggests JCPOA restoration does not depend on the agency first being satisfied with Iran over the “outstanding issues.”

Written Explanations

The Grossi-Eslami statement agreement stipulates that once Iran provides “written explanations including related supporting documents” by March 21, there would be two weeks for the IAEA to raise questions, and another week for Iran to answer them before further meetings between the IAEA and the AEOI.

Grossi would then report to the IAEA board by June – which presumably explains Eslami’s reference to June made earlier in the day.

Sitting next to Grossi at the Tehran news conference Saturday, Eslami said, according to Reuters, that Iran would resolve “outstanding matters,” and that “we have agreed to provide the IAEA by the end of Khordad [the Iranian month ending June 21] with documents related to outstanding questions between Tehran and the agency.”

While the IAEA would monitor a restored JCPOA – with greater powers of inspections – the agency is not directly involved in the Vienna talks. Its enquiries into Tehran’s pre-2003 nuclear work are part of monitoring Iran’s atomic program under the ‘safeguards’ requirements of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty.

‘Very important safeguards’

But while Iran has said the IAEA’s probe into “outstanding issues” resulted from political pressure, especially from the United States, its failure to satisfy the agency has cast a shadow over the Vienna talks and threatened to complicate the challenges in reviving the JCPOA.

"My impression is that it would be difficult to imagine you can have a cooperative relationship as if nothing had happened if the clarification of very important safeguards were to fail," Grossi told the press conference in Tehran when asked directly how the matter could affect the Vienna talks.

While diplomats in Vienna have said the negotiations have edged nearer agreement, there have been sticking-points in agreeing exactly which US sanctions contravene the JCPOA and exactly how Tehran’s refined and expanded nuclear program might be brought back within JCPOA limits. A further complication came Saturday when Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, suggested Moscow needed assurances that international sanctions over Ukraine would not hamper Russia’s links with Iran, including its co-operation in implementing a restored JCPOA.