Iran Questions ‘Credibility’ Of UN Nuclear Agency

Lapid has argued that his tactful approach to France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Biden administration has been more productive than the assertive stance of his rival Benjamin Netanyahu, as the two men lead their respective political blocs towards Israel’s November 1 parliamentary election.

“Yesterday the E3 countries announced that a nuclear agreement with Iran will not be signed in the near future, that the IAEA’s open files regarding Iran are not about to be closed,” Lapid said Sunday. “Israel is conducting a successful diplomatic campaign to stop the nuclear agreement and prevent the lifting of sanctions on Iran.”

However, what pushed the Europeans to say that there are “no active negotiations” was Iran’s latest response to a European Union draft agreement submitted to Tehran and Washington on August 8. Iran’s response was called “non-constructive” by the Biden administration and seen by the E3 as a sign of lack of willingness to make a deal by Tehran.

If Iran’s response was different after 17 months of talks, the Biden administration had already agreed to the EU draft and the optimism prevailing in August would have been justified.

Iran insists that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) drop an enquiry into uranium traces found in sites linked to Tehran’s nuclear work before 2003. It also demands various sorts of guarantees from the US.

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Time for ‘new agreement’

A “senior Israeli official” told journalists Sunday that the time had come to look for a “new agreement,” leading some Israeli media to proclaim the JCPOA dead. Unless the IAEA, Iran and the US together with the E3 change their minds, “there won't be any choice” but to abandon the 2015 deal, the Israeli official reportedly said.

Lapid said the aim of his trip to Germany was to coordinate “positions on the nuclear issue” and that he would be “finalizing the details of the strategic, economic, and security cooperation document we are going to sign.”

Lapid also stressed Israel was “working to prevent Iran from establishing terrorist bases throughout the Middle East and especially in Syria.” Israel regards Lebanon’s Hezbollah, a close Iranian ally, as well as most Palestinian groups as ‘terrorist.’ Lapid said there was a “growing terror threat in the West Bank,” according to the Jerusalem Post.

Consulting partners

The E3, apparently short of declaring the JCPOA talks dead as Lapid suggested, said it would “consult, alongside international partners” on how best to proceed, both over the continued expansion in Iran’s nuclear program and its failure to satisfy the IAEA over the uranium traces.

In Iran, some argue Europe’s attitude towards the talks may change as winter brings energy shortages due to sanctions on Russian energy exports and European leaders eye Iran’s 90 million barrels of oil in storage, which would be released with US sanctions eased should the JCPOA be restored.

Ali Akbar Salehi, who was head of the Atomic Energy Agency of Iran (AEOI) when the JCPOA was signed in 2015, defended the agreement this week against critics by arguing it had not fundamentally stymied Iran’s technological progress. Hence, Salehi argued, the AEOI had been quickly able to expand the program once parliament, in the wake of the November 2020 had passed legislation requiring a higher level of uranium enrichment and employing more advanced centrifuges.

Iran earlier this month sent its latest response to the European Union's proposed text to restore the 2015 agreement, or the JCPOA.

Iran insists on the closure of investigations by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) into uranium traces at three sites.

The IAEA's Board of Governors meet on Monday, three months after adopting a resolution urging Iran to give credible answers to the watchdog on the issue. Ahead of that meeting the European parties to the deal vented their frustration.

"This latest demand raises serious doubts as to Iran's intentions and commitment to a successful outcome on the JCPoA," the three countries, known as the E3, said in a statement.

"Iran's position contradicts its legally binding obligations and jeopardizes prospects of restoring the JCPoA."

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said the statement was "unconstructive.”

"If such an approach persists, they (E3) should also take responsibility for its consequences," Kanaani said without elaborating.

The European statement also prompted Russia's envoy to the talks to respond on Twitter calling it "very untimely indeed". He dismissed the blockage as something that "was not a serious obstacle".

Highlighting how entrenched positions are before next week, France's negotiator, Philippe Errera, called out his Russian counterpart.

"There is no longer an active negotiation, since Iran's last response - which you, unlike almost all your followers, have had access to," he said on Twitter.

Ulyanov responded that at least they agreed that there was no active negotiation.

Reporting by Reuters

A statement from the ‘E3’ said Tehran had chosen not to take the “critical diplomatic opportunity” offered by a text circulated August 8 by the European Union in an effort to conclude 18-month talks to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).

A statement from United States foreign affairs spokesman Ned Price Friday said Secretary of State Antony Blinken had briefed the E3 foreign ministers on his Ukraine visit and that they had “discussed the challenges posed by Iran and our commitment to working together to address them.”

Since the EU draft was circulated August 8, there has been a series of diplomatic exchanges between Iran and the US that have failed to resolve remaining differences over JCPOA revival.

The E3 statement highlighted this week’s report from the IAEA director Rafael Mariano Grossi that he had made no progress with Iran in explaining the uranium traces since the IAEA managing board in June passed a resolution, drawn up by the US and the E3, censuring Tehran. Saturday’s E3 statement reiterated that Iran needed to “provide technically credible answers,” regardless of the JCPOA talks, because of its “legally binding obligations” under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty.

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Tehran has argued the IAEA probe is politically motivated, and results from allegations made by Israel in 2018 as Trump withdrew the US from the JCPOA. In December 2015, Iran argues, the IAEA had produced a final report on Tehran’s pre-2003 nuclear work.

But while the E3 and US statements referred to continuing consultation, neither suggested what steps might be taken at the next IAEA board. Russia and China have both said that pursuing the matter, even back in June, was unhelpful to the JCPOA talks, and both countries hold vetoes at the United Nations Security Council should the E3 and US seek to refer Iran there.

The pause in the JCPOA talks has heightened focus on the Biden administration’s approach. It has stoked debate in Israel as it approaches a November 1 election. Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu is highlighting Iran to undermine Prime Minister Yair Lapid after David Barnea, head of the extraterritorial force Mossad, gave August press briefings critical of Biden, with whom Lapid has sought to coordinate.

Ross: US must ‘make clear’ it will act

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Opponents of the JCPOA in the US have also gained momentum. Dennis Ross, who has held senior positions in Republican and Democratic administrations and maintains a skeptical view of the JCPOA while acknowledging it curbed Iran’s nuclear program, this week published a piece in Foreign Policy arguing that even if the 2015 agreement were revived, “Iran after 2030 [when some JCPOA clauses expire] would be in a position to move quickly to a bomb unless Iranian leaders come to believe that the cost of doing so is too high.”

Given Iran had acquired “nuclear know-how” and had become “a threshold nuclear weapons state” since Trump left the JCPOA and Iran expanded its nuclear activities, Ross wrote, Washington needed to make clear to the Iranian leadership that “the United States will act at a certain point and take out their entire nuclear infrastructure.”

While the Biden administration, and the E3, have never ruled out military action, Ross’s argument was that Iran’s leaders “do not believe Washington will ever use force against them.” This, he wrote, the US can and should change.

Malley met on Thursday with the leaders of several US Jewish organizations, including The Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Union for Reform Judaism, American Jewish Committee, Democratic Majority for Israel and AIPAC, the Jewish Insider reported on Friday. 

Participants declined to share information about what was discussed, but a JFNA spokesperson said that “Federations appreciated the engagement from the White House, and we’re pleased the meeting took place.”

Most of the participants had publicly criticized the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – or the JCPOA -- and similarly spoken out against ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran. 

Earlier in the day, a statement by the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said Mossad chief David Barnea has shared "sensitive intelligence materials" with heads of CIA, FBI, Pentagon and other top officials, warning US against being cheated by the Islamic Republic’s lies.

Earlier in September, Yair Lapid said the country is leading “an intensive campaign” meant to prevent the signing of “a dangerous” nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.

US Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides said on September 5 that President Joe Biden has assured Lapid that Washington will never tie Israel’s hands against Iran.

Also on Friday, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina predicted that a new Iran deal will not be finalized until after the upcoming US midterms and Israeli elections, set for November 1, and talked of plans for multiple legislative initiatives aimed at countering Tehran.

Expressing hope that the talks to restore the deal go nowhere, the senator for Texas told our correspondent Arash Aalaei on Thursday, "The Biden White House seems bound to shovel hundreds of billions of dollars into the hands of a theocratic despot who routinely chants 'death to America' and 'death to Israel'."

“If this deal goes through, that money will be used to murder Americans and our allies, and it would dramatically accelerate the process of the Ayatollah getting a nuclear weapon which if God forbid, he does, could well be used to murder millions of Americans,” he added. 

Cruz went on to criticize President Joe Biden’s foreign policy, which, he claims, have emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin to attack Ukraine. “This (Ukraine) war should never have happened. It only happened because of Joe Biden's weakness and appeasement.” 

“First of all, in surrendering Afghanistan and signaling weakness to all of our enemies, but then secondly in waiving sanctions on Nord Stream 2 pipeline, handing a multi-billion-dollar gift to Putin, which was the direct and incipient cause of Putin's invasion of Ukraine,” he said.