Iranian Drones For Russia Add To Biden's Policy Dilemma

US State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel reiterated during a phone briefing that Russian officials had conducted training on drones in Iran "in the last several weeks."

He said Washington would "vigorously enforce" its sanctions on both Russian and Iranian weapons trading as the transfers of drones between the two countries was "potentially sanctionable under numerous authorities," noting that "We remain incredibly concerned about Iran's use and proliferation of UAVs. They have been used to attack US forces, our partners in the region, and international shipping entities.”

Since last month, US officials have repeatedly said that Washington had information that Iran was preparing to provide Russia with up to several hundred drones, including some that are weapons capable, and that Russian officials had visited Iran to view attack-capable unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)

Iran has been supplying drones to its allies in the Middle East for a long time but selling drones to Russia to for its war in Ukraine has raised serious international concerns.

Iran's foreign minister denied the claim, including in a phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart but late In July, an Iranian lawmaker said the military cooperation between Tehran and Moscow has upset the political equations of the global order, confirming Russia’s request to buy Iranian drones.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan warned twice in July that Moscow appears to be looking at buying Iranian drones and Russian officers even visited a drone base in Iran’s Kashan to review their options.

An adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky told Iran International on July 25 that Russia and Iran are allies in the Ukraine war and it won’t be a surprise if Tehran supplies drones to Moscow.

Mohammad Marandi, who acts as de facto spokesman on the talks, referred both to the four-day round of meetings in Vienna that concluded Monday and to earlier rounds. “Iran was able to make significant progress in all fields, which of course will be announced in due course,” Marandi told the Young Journalists Club, a state-owned news agency.

Marandi claimed western journalist had told him that “many government elites of Western countries, as well as Persian-language media people based abroad” also regarded the talks as a success for Iran.

The Vienna talks – largely indirect contacts between the United States and Iran mediated by the European Union – ended with senior EU official Enrique Mora circulating a document designed to bridge remaining gaps. While the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called this a “final text,” Iranian officials treated it as a set of proposals needing further review.

Awaiting ‘high-level meeting’

Nour News, affiliated to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, reported late Wednesday that the text was being analyzed “at the experts’ level,” but had not yet been discussed by a “high-level meeting.” The SNSC, made up of 24 of Iran’s leading politicians and military commanders, shapes policy on the nuclear issue, although crucial decisions may come in informal discussions around Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

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The nuclear talks, beginning in April 2021 in an effort to revive the 2015 agreement (the JCPOA), have wrestled with intertwined political and technical issues – essentially over which US sanctions introduced after Washington left the JCPOA in 2018 contravene the 2015 agreement and how Iran’s atomic program, expanded since 2019, should be returned to JCPOA limits.

Marandi reiterated that Tehran expects the dropping of “false accusations against Iran in the agency,” a reference to enquiries by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) into Iranian nuclear work before 2003. The US and three European JCPOA signatories argue these enquiries arise under Tehran’s basic obligations as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and have nothing to do with renewing the JCPOA.

Iran, on the other hand, argues that the IAEA concluded investigations into Iran’s past nuclear work in 2015, the year the JCPOA was agreed, and revived them only after allegations made by Israel in 2018, the year the US left the JCPOA.

“Let's not forget that before the previous meeting of the Board of Governors [in June, which passed a resolution critical of Iran], the head of the agency, [Rafael Mariano] Grossi, travelled to Israel,” Marandi said.

Iran had promised earlier this year to provide satisfactory answers to the IAEA regarding questions around its past secret nuclear work, but in late May the agency said it had not received convincing explanations.

Guarded comments

In remarks published Thursday on the Rouydad news website, Hossein Maliki, of the Iranian parliament’s security and foreign policy committee, warned that negotiations could be facing a “dead end…because we see less flexibility in the Americans.”

Maliki said he had not seen the Mora text, but his guarded comments – noting Iran’s “positive opinion” on “some provisions” of a “previous text”, an apparent reference to a document circulated by Borrell in late July – suggested he was hedging while long-term JCPOA opponents argued the talks had failed.

The official news agency IRNA reported that Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, in a telephone conversation with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, expressed hope that “the American side, with a realistic and pragmatic view…will provide the ground for an agreement on the final text.”

In a joint press conference with his Cypriot counterpart Charalambos Petrides, Gantz said the financial support is in addition to the transfer of technical intelligence for the constitution of military bases in Gaza from which to launch attacks against civilian centers in southern Israel. 

"Israel will continue to act against Iran's emissaries together with our partners. We will continue to work together for the stability of the entire region," he added.

After the launch of Operation Breaking Dawn against targets in Gaza on August 5, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said that Islamic Jihad is an Iranian proxy that wants to destroy Israel, noting that Israel has a zero-tolerance policy for any attempted attacks from Gaza. The head of Islamic Jihad -- a militant outfit designated a terrorist organization by the US, EU, and UK -- was in Tehran when during the three-day operation. 

Ziyad al-Nakhalah held meeting with several senior Iranian officials in Tehran including Supreme Leader's adviser Ali Akbar Velayati, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and Kamal Kharrazi, the head of Iran's Strategic Council on Foreign Relations, as well as President Ebrahim Raisi and a number of high-ranking IRGC commander. 

Tehran condemned the Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, vowed continued support and called for closer ties between the Islamic Republic and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

In a Wednesday interview with Israel’s Channel 13, Tom Nides reiterated Washington’s full support of Israel’s right to self-defense after the latest operation against Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a militant outfit designated a terrorist organization by the US, EU, and UK. Iran also backs the Gaza rulers, Hamas.

“Every option is on the table, as President Biden has said. We’re not going to allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Every option is on the table,” Nides said of the Iranian nuclear threat.

“We support Israel’s right to defend itself, its right to basically take the actions it needs to keep this place safe, so we’re fully supportive of Israel’s actions,” the envoy said.

Israel launched airstrikes against the group on August 5, kicking off three days of fighting, before an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire came into force Sunday night. “These are bad guys,” Nides said referring to the terror groups. “We’re aware of the situation going on in Gaza. We understood this was an important mission for the Israelis.”

Earlier in the week, UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said that she remains committed to standing up to Iranian hostility and their pursuit of nuclear weapons.

"The UK stands by Israel and its right to defend itself. We condemn terrorist groups firing at civilians and violence which has resulted in casualties on both sides. We call for a swift end to the violence," the candidate to becomes the next UK prime minister added.

In a tweet on Wednesday, Florida’s senator Marco Rubio said, “Why is Biden still negotiating with Iran on a new 'deal' when he knows they are actively trying to assassinate former government officials on US soil?

While Iran rejected US accusations of a plot to kill former national security adviser John Bolton, the threat to US citizens can have an impact on nuclear talks as critics question Biden’s reasoning to continue the nuclear talks with the regime in Tehran.

Representative Claudia Tenney (Rep-NY) rebuked the administration for trying to “lift terror sanctions on the IRGC, even though it knew the IRGC was plotting to kill Americans on US soil.”

“The regime in Iran does not deserve nor should it receive a penny in sanctions relief,” she added.

Urging the administration to call off the talks in Vienna until the assassination plots end, former State Department Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said, “Even in light of this, Biden admin “only respond once Iran kills one of our former officials.

“Iranian agents were willing to pay $300,000 to assassinate Bolton and suggested he be run over with a car or shot at short range. Iran planned worse for Pompeo. Iran offered to pay $1 million to kill him, and told their operative a 'long-range capability' was necessary.”

She stressed the need “to kick out the Iranian Interests Section in DC immediately and reimpose strict travel restrictions on Iranian 'diplomats’ in NYC.”