Some See Danger For Iran in Nuclear Stalemate While Others See A Chance

Separately, he also said the US will “cooperate” with Israel to stop Iran weaponizing.

In a joint press conference Monday with South Korean foreign Minister Park Jin the United States Secretary of State praised the 2015 deal – the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) – as “the most comprehensive and complete monitoring and inspections regime of any arms control agreement yet put in place.”

At the same time, Blinken voiced concern over Iran’s negotiating tactics in the stalled Vienna talks. “But what we’ve seen is Iran continuing to try to inject extraneous issues into the conversation, into the negotiation, that simply have no place there.”

Referring to year-long talks between Iran and world powers to revive the 2015 agreement, Blinken said that “a lot of work went into seeing if we could return to mutual compliance with the JCPOA” but “it is fundamentally up to Iran to decide whether or not it wishes to re-engage.”

The Biden administration came into office committed to restoring the JCPOA, from which President Donald Trump withdrew the US in 2018 calling the deal “the worst in history.” Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ pressure sanctions on Iran were followed in 2019 with Tehran expanding its nuclear program beyond JCPOA limits, a move that accelerated after the election of Joe Biden.

Cooperation with Israel

In a video address to the American Jewish Congress Forum delivered Monday, Blinken said “we are continuing our close coordination with our Israeli partners to prevent Iran from developing” a nuclear weapon.

This came with claims in the New York Times that Israel, which opposes the JCPOA, had poisoned two Iranian scientists, Ayoub Entezari and Kamran Aghamolaei, who were in May reported dead from food poisoning.

The November 2021 killing of scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, which outraged the Iranian parliament and led it to pass legislation expanding Iran’s nuclear program, was widely attributed to Israel, as were four killings and one attempted murder 2010-12.

“We have shifted into a higher gear,” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said last week at a meeting of parliament’s defense and foreign affairs committee. “We are acting at all times and places, and we will continue to do so.”

Israel has also been carrying out widespread military drills reported by the Israeli media as simulating attacks on Iran.

Biden criticized from both sides

The Biden administration’s approach has led to nervousness in the European Union, which has led efforts to keep open a diplomatic path with Tehran and it concerned over what is perceived as lethargy in the face of Israeli saber-rattling.

In the US, criticism of the US administration’s approach has been growing as the Iranian nuclear program continues to expand under reduced monitoring by the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

At the beginning of June, Robert Menendez, chair of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, said “hope is not a national security strategy” and more recently that restoring the JCPOA was not in US interests. Menendez called for a “comprehensive strategy” over Iran.

Supporters of the JCPOA agree Biden’s approach has failed. The president had “ruled out the symbolic concession that would be most likely to break the months-long diplomatic impasse [taking Iran’s Revolutionary Guards off the US list of ‘foreign terrorist organizations,’ reportedly an issue in talks],” Ryan Costello, policy director of the National Iranian American Council, wrote in a piece published June 9.

But opponents of making concessions to Iran say removing the IRGC from the US terror list is not a symbolic act at all, as the military-intelligence outfit actively pursues a policy to harm Americans and allies.

Saeed Khatibzadeh launched his defense of Tehran’s policies at a press conference on Monday by attacking a recent trip by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi to Israel.

Defending the government’s decision to reduce cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog as a reaction to the resolution critical of Iran, he said, “We could not leave the IAEA’s political and non-technical action unanswered. Our response was decisive and appropriate.”

The resolution called on Iran to engage with the IAEA without delay and expressed “profound concern” at Iran’s failure to satisfy the agency over traces of uranium found at three undeclared sites and highlighted earlier in June in a report from by Grossi.

"The abrupt change in the IAEA chief’s tone, his manner of negotiations, and his discourse when he addressed the European Parliament [earlier in May] clearly shows that he was acting on the orders of an outside player," Khatibzadeh said.

Relations between Iran and the Agency continue within the technical framework, he added, saying that if Grossi wants to come to Iran within the framework of agency, he should have an agenda by the agency, but he can come as a tourist.

Saying that Grossi made a trip to the wrong place and at the wrong time and “met with wrong people, he added, “It is unfortunate that the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency has granted the unlawful regime of Israel permission to make a mockery of the international organization through its agents, and erode its credibility.”

Reiterating that the move seriously harmed the credibility of the UN nuclear watchdog, Khatibzadeh said that “These actions have discredited the achievements of international organizations. Under the Statute of the IAEA, its chief is obligated to ensure the independence and impartiality of the organization.”

Iran told the IAEA it plans to remove more monitoring equipment after the 35-member IAEA board Wednesday passed the resolution. Tehran says it intends to maintain a basic level of monitoring and inspectors’ access as required under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

On Sunday, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Tehran is resisting excessive demands presented “by the other side” in talks to restore the 2015 nuclear deal that have stalled since March. The Iranian parliament and all Friday Prayer Imams in Iran, who are representatives of the Supreme Leader, backed the decision to reduce relations with the IAEA.

Khatibzadeh also touched on the Vienna talks, saying an agreement is within reach if the United States abandons delusions and fulfills its commitments.

“If the agreement is finalized in Vienna tomorrow, all the measures carried out by Iran are technically reversible,” he said.

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian made the remarks on Sunday after attending a session of the Parliament’s Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy to brief lawmakers about a resolution passed by the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to condemn lack of cooperation by the Islamic Republic. 

“Every time that the opposite side put forth excessive demands during the [Vienna talks], we used the country’s own tools and power, so that they would understand that the interests and welfare of the Iranian nation were important to us,” he said without elaborating on the tools, but he was probably referring to the government’s decision to reduce monitoring access to the UN nuclear watchdog. 

Iran told the IAEA it plans to remove more monitoring equipment after the 35-member IAEA board Wednesday passed the resolution. Tehran says it intends to maintain a basic level of monitoring and inspectors’ access as required under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

In a statement issued by the Iranian parliament on Sunday, 260 lawmakers slammed the IAEA's “excessive, politically-motivated measure,” saying the resolution proves that the agency and its director general have lost all their technical credibility, in reference to Rafael Grossi’s recent visit to Israel.

On Friday, all Friday Prayer Imams in Iran, who are representatives of the Supreme Leader, backed the decision to reduce relations with the IAEA.

The Friday Imams described removing the monitoring equipment installed by the International Atomic Energy Agency as the first step in reducing relations with the agency, with Tehran's Friday prayer Imam Ahmad Khatami condemning the IAEA resolution against Iran and saying that “the revolutionaries hit the bully in the mouth."

Referring to the IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi's visit to Israel, the hardliner cleric called on the authorities "not to provide complete information to the IAEA." 

Similar remarks against the resolution and IAEA’s monitoring of Iranian facilities were made during the Friday prayer sermons in several other cities, including Esfahan, Arak, Bushehr, Ilam, and Ahvaz. 

Iran told the IAEA it plans to remove more monitoring equipment after the 35-member IAEA board Wednesday passed the resolution. Tehran says it intends to maintain a basic level of monitoring and inspectors’ access as required under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The contents of Friday Prayer sermons delivered by Khamenei's local representatives in various cities are dictated by two state bodies close to Khamenei's office, officially known as "The Policy-making Council for Friday Prayer Imams" and the "Friday Prayer Headquarters," both dominated by hardliner clerics.

“It’s feasible, it’s doable,” Mikhail Ulyanov said. The ambassador claimed agreement between Iran and world powers was “99.9 percent” achieved when talks broke off March 10.

"We were five minutes from the finishing line,” he told Iran International Fardad Farahzad in a video interview.

After year-long negotiations to revive the 2015 deal, known as JCPOA, stopped in Vienna, it became clear that Iran and the United States had significant differences over what sanctions would be removed once an agreement was inked. Iran insisted that its Revolutionary Guard should be removed from the US list of terrorist organizations, a demand Washington has refused.

Ulyanov condemned the resolution passed Wednesday by the IAEA board criticizing Iran, which he said was "counterproductive" and "illogical at a very delicate moment in the Vienna talks when the final outcome is in question.” On Thursday, Ulyanov had called the Western move “stupid”, but in the he told Iran International that he should not have deviated from diplomatic language.

The resolution tabled by the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany passed overwhelmingly, leaving only China and Russia as countries voting against.

Resolutions were passed by the 35-member board, Ulyanov argued only “on rare occasions and is perceived as something extraordinary as a rule.”

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The ambassador denied the situation with Iran – including its growing stockpile of uranium enriched to 60 percent and its continuing restrictions of IAEA monitoring - was extraordinary.

“It’s not urgent,” he said. “We are talking about uranium particles which belong to the beginning of this millennium [work carried out by Iran before 2003]…nobody can insist that these particles represent any proliferation risk.” Tehran had provided some information to the IAEA, he added, including over uranium metal, so that “progress is there.”

But the IAEA thought otherwise when on June 6 its director Rafael Grossi submitted his report to the Board of Directors saying, “Iran has not provided explanations that are technically credible in relation to the Agency’s findings at three undeclared locations in Iran.”

Iran and the IAEA had agreed in March that Tehran would fully answer questions about its past nuclear work by mid-June, and the UN nuclear watchdog concluded that there was little progress in that respect.

Ulyanov insisted that the passage of the resolution had led to Iran’s “retaliatory measures” in informing the IAEA it would remove further monitoring equipment. This, he said, had confirmed his assessment expressed before the resolution was raised.

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“I could not understand the logic behind this initiative of my western counterparts. I must tell you that last year they tried to do something like those three times – in which case the Russian Federation managed to convince them not to take this step.”

Such persuasion was more difficult in the current climate, Ulyanov conceded, obliquely referring to tensions over Ukraine.

Moscow remained committed, he insisted, to the 2015 nuclear deal (the JCPOA, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) as a “great achievement in the field of” non-proliferation.” He said that the current state of Iran’s nuclear program did not bring Tehran as near to nuclear weapons as some suggested.

“Russia is the strongest supporter of the nuclear non-proliferation regime…we don’t want the so-called ‘nuclear club’ [those states possessing nuclear weapons] to be extended… Speculations about so-called ‘break out time’ [the time it would take Iran to develop a bomb]…are not helpful…If Tehran obtains a sufficient amount of nuclear material – if they don’t have it at this stage – then they will [still] need to produce a nuclear warhead, which will take a lot of time, even if a political decision is taken in this regard.”

However, not all Iranian research and military sites are under international monitoring, and no one can be sure how quickly it can assemble a weapon once it has sufficient fissile material. By most accounts, Iran either already has or will soon amass enough enriched uranium for one or maybe two bombs.

The ambassador noted that while aspects of the Iranian nuclear program were “rather sensitive” that “at this stage we have no reason to believe Iran is looking for nuclear weapons…at least nobody has proved such an allegation.”

Ulyanov argued that Iran, while enriching uranium to 60 percent was not enriching to ‘weapons grade” [90 percent]: “To the best of my knowledge, at this stage they are not going to do that, unless somebody from outside provokes them to take some risky steps.”

But critics of the talks say that as Iran has dragged out the talks it has engaged in nuclear brinksmanship, advancing its program, while claiming it is not after weapons.