Europe Wants One Last Effort To Revive Iran Nuclear Deal Amid Pessimism

A missile also landed in the outer fence of the refinery without causing any casualties, the statement added.

Earlier on Sunday, the anti-terrorism authorities in Kurdistan region said six missiles landed near the KAR refinery in Erbil, adding they were launched from Nineveh province.

The security forces said they found a launch pad and four missiles in the Nineveh Plain after the attack and defused them.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi said the armed forces will pursue the perpetrators of what he called a "cowardly attack", while discussing the security situation in a phone call with Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani, the prime minister's office said on Twitter.

Three missiles also fell near the refinery on April 6, without causing any casualties. Sources in the Kurdistan Regional Government told Reuters then that the refinery is owned by Iraqi Kurdish businessman Baz Karim Barzanji, CEO of major domestic energy company the KAR Group.

In March, Iran attacked Erbil with a dozen ballistic missiles in an unprecedented assault on the capital of the autonomous Iraqi Kurdish region that appeared to target the United States and its allies. Later reports emerged that KAR Group might have been the target for plans to export natural gas to Europe.

Menendez said on Sunday that, “It’s 2022. It's not 2014. Some of the original deal sunsets are even closer… to ending a pathway where Iran could ultimately achieve its goal,” a reference to the belief that Tehran is bent on producing nuclear weapons.

His remarks came as negotiations between Tehran and world powers seem to have come to a dead end while the European parties are making a fresh push to revive the talks.

According to Western diplomats close to the talks, the European Union coordinator of the negotiations, Enrique Mora, has told Iranian counterparts he is ready to return to Tehran to open a pathway, hoping to break the stalemate.

The negotiations, which started in Vienna in April 2021, have been on a protracted pause since March 11, as the Islamic Republic demanded removing Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) from the US list of terrorist organizations.

Western and Iranian officials said the text of the nuclear deal was virtually complete and technical issues have been resolved but political issues have remained.

There is bipartisan opposition in Washington and anger among the US Middle Eastern allies over the prospect of the terrorist designation being removed.

The US says the only way it would take that step is if Iran is ready to discuss issues related to its role in the region.

Iranian teachers staged a new round of protests across the country on Sunday, May1, the international Labor Day, organized by the Coordination Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations.

According to the association's Telegram channel, despite earlier arrest of several leading figures of the teachers’ movement, a large number of teachers tried to gather in front of the parliament at Tehran's Baharestan Square but they were forced by large contingent of security forces to leave the area.

In their rallies Sunday, teachers chanted slogans against Education Minister Yusef Nouri and Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf whose family’s recent shopping trip to Turkey has led to widespread condemnations and demands for his resignation.

Protesters also demanded the release of their imprisoned colleagues. In Arak in central Iran protesters chanted "Teachers are vigilant, they hate discrimination" while in Shiraz, Fars Province, they said "Our enemy is right here, it's a lie to say it's America".

In Bushehr, as seen in videos posted on social media, security forces on Sunday attacked and injured several protesters and arrested at least six. There have also been reports of arrests in Langaroud in northern Iran, Marivan and Saqqez in western provinces of Kordestan and West Azarbaijan, and Tehran.

The association recently said in a statement that the teachers' movement would not be subdued by security and judicial crackdowns on union activists including sentencing them to four to 12 years in prison.

Teachers say they will continue their protests until authorities meet their demands including the implementation of decade-old legislation that would bring the salaries and pensions of 750,000 teachers in line with other civil servants as well as the freedom of their colleagues who have been imprisoned for their trade union activities.

Police raided the homes of several union activists in Tehran and arrested at least four on Saturday. Eskandar Lotfi, spokesman of the Coordination Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations, said Saturday that tens of other teachers from different parts of the country were summoned to court.

Lotfi and two other union members were also arrested early Sunday. Esmail Abdi, a member of the association, went on hunger strike Sunday in protest to the clampdown on union activists.

Following protests across Iran in December, the executive board of Education International, the Brussels-based federation of trade unions of teachers and education workers, in a resolution demanded respect for the "rights of teachers and education workers to organize and to freedom of association and freedom of speech including the right to peaceful assembly, without fear of intervention by the authorities" as well as “institutionalizing dialogue” with teachers' representative organizations.

Four years of deep economic crisis in Iran following the introduction of United States ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions in 2018 has led to sharp increases in living costs and to labor unrest. In January hundreds of firefighters and staff from the judiciary took to the streets in several cities. Prison guards have also picketed to protest their salaries.

People from different walks of life, including teachers, nurses, firefighters, and even staff members of the judiciary department and prison guards, have held regular protest rallies or strikes to demand higher salaries.

Jahromi told IRNA on Sunday that, "We currently have nothing new to say about the Vienna Talks" to restore the 2015 nuclear agreement between Tehran and the world powers.

He made the remarks as reports say the Unites States is getting closer to admitting the failure of the talks while many US lawmakers are calling on the administration to walk out of the talks.

Apparently implying that the nuclear talks are not the Iran’s top priority, he said, “Negotiations are one of the current issues on the table of the Islamic Republic along with other issues in the international arena”.

“Iran will never back down from international diplomatic mechanisms until it fully and comprehensively protects the rights of the nation”, Jahromi added.

Negative news on the talks would be very harmful to the government’s effort to defend the battered currency, rial, which is close to its all-time low against major currencies. Annual inflation, already above 40 percent, could completely get out of hand if the rial crosses the 300,000-rial threshold against the US dollar. It currently trades around 280,000.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman last Monday called for some sort of renewal of the nuclear talks, telling the public that Europeans, Russia and China have no objection to an agreement and only Washington is delaying the process.

In a shift in its regional policy, Erdogan this week visited Saudi Arabia, while having delayed a similar visit to Iran. Abdolreza Farajirad, a professor of international relations in Tehran told ILNA news website that Erdogan is signalling his preference to strengthen ties with Riyadh amid his country’s economic crisis.

Iran is under United States’ sanctions, he said, and Erdogan needs economic partners.

Turkey and Saudi Arabia have a common will to "reactivate a great economic potential" between the two countries, Erdogan said on Saturday, after his first trip to the kingdom since 2017.

Speaking to reporters on a flight back from Saudi Arabia, where he sought to mend frayed ties, Erdogan said the sides were determined to accelerate efforts for the common interests and stability of the region, Turkish media reported.

"We agreed with Saudi Arabia to reactivate a great economic potential through organizations that will bring our investors together," Erdogan said.

Farajirad said that Erdogan is acting according to Turkey’s national interests. US sanctions have reduced Turkish-Iranian commerce and what Ankara needs is investments and trade. He pointed out that Erdogan’s outreach began with the United Arab Emirates and then Israel, culminating with his trip to Saudi Arabia.

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Over his long tenure, Erdogan has shown that he is capable of shifting his foreign policy direction to address Turkey’s needs, Farajirad said emphasizing the importance of pursuing national interests.

Although he could not openly criticize the Islamic Republic in Iran’s controlled media environment, the analyst was indirectly drawing a parallel between Turkish foreign policy and Iran’s ideological approach to foreign policy.

“This shows our foreign policy is at an impasse, although I don’t want to criticize the foreign ministry, but until there is no agreement in Vienna, the impasse will continue,” Farajirad argued.

After more than year of negotiations with world powers, particularly with the United States in Vienna, Iran has still not agreed to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement, JCPOA, demanding that its Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) be removed from a US list of terrorist organizations.

Washington, in return, maintains that the terrorist designation has nothing to do with the nuclear issue, and if Tehran wants non-nuclear sanctions to be removed it should be willing to discuss its destabilizing regional role.

So far, the Islamic Republic has remained defiant, emphasizing its opposition to Israel and Arab countries that have normalized ties with the Jewish state.

The IRGC continues to speak loudly and emphasize its ongoing support to militant groups in the region.

Farajirad argued that in the meantime, Riyadh’s foreign policy has become active again, taking positions which make it easier for other countries to draw closer to its positions. As a result, it has had successes in improving ties with Qatar and Turkey and also influence events in Lebanon and Pakistan, where the Muslim League has returned to power.

Erdogan, in turn, has found the moment opportune for trying to benefit from Saudi Arabia’s vast financial resources, especially at a time of high oil prices, “to benefit from trade with Saudi Arabia and investments by Riyadh.”