Iran Not Seeking Interim Deal With US, Negotiates For Prisoner-Swap

In May, Iranian Deputy Trade Minister Alireza Peyman-Pak made the announcement that VTB would be the first Russian bank with a direct presence in Iran, but this was quashed by Andrei Kostin, the bank's CEO.

“We are not going to open a bank in Iran. We opened a representative office, and two people work there," he said, speaking to Reuters.

The CEO explained that the office is simply a contact point where requests can be submitted, claiming that VTB does not plan to "majorly change" the geography of its presence.

After Russia's war against Ukraine, VTB was one of the Russian banks that was completely sanctioned by the United States and the European Union and banned from operating in European countries.

The bank has subsequently been forced to close its branches in Europe and Africa and has only branches now, in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Vietnam.

According to Iranian regulations, representative offices of foreign banks only play the role of liaison between the bank and Iranian organizations and companies.

Raisi is expected to visit Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua - all sanctioned by the United States.

“The common position of Iran and the three countries is to stand against the domination system and confront unilateralism,” claimed Raisi before his trip.

The tour will begin with Raisi's visit to Venezuela, which is a close ally of Tehran receiving oil and other assistance. This is his 13th foreign trip since taking office.

Last year, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro visited Tehran and signed a 20-year cooperation plan to take bilateral relations to a new level.

Along with his chief of staff and deputy for political affairs, the president is accompanied by his ministers of foreign affairs, petroleum, defense, and health.

“In addition to friendly political ties with Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, Iran has also had good cooperation with these countries in the field of energy, industry, agriculture, science and technology, and medicine and treatment,” added Raisi.

Last month, a Cuban delegation visited Tehran and signed 13 agreements that included cooperation in biotechnology, healthcare, trade, banking, agriculture, and sports.

The three countries are key political allies for Iran. The United States has accused Iran of circumventing sanctions by exporting crude to countries including Venezuela, while also helping the oil-rich Latin American country to rebuild its energy infrastructure.

Khamenei who was addressing a group of Iranian nuclear scientists and officials in Tehran also claimed that Iran will not opt for nuclear weapons simply because of Islamic principles, “otherwise, they could not have prevented us.”

Tehran’s nuclear program, which has almost reached the threshold of weaponization, is quite controversial among Iranians, with many blaming the resulting sanctions for ruining the economy and impoverishing tens of millions of people.

Apparently, cognizant of the is fact, Khamenei said, “If you want a powerful Iran, all those who love Iran and the Islamic Republic, everyone who loves the nation and aspires for the power of this country, should regard this nuclear scientific, research and industrial effort as important.”

His use of nationalist slogans was clearly meant to garner some support among the population, with what is seen as a small minority of loyalists supporting the regime.

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Iran’s nuclear program once again became a highly controversial international issue when former US President withdrew from the 2015 JCPOA accord, demanding a tougher agreement and a change of behavior by Iran that was fomenting trouble across the Middle East.

President Joe Biden quickly signaled his intention to return to the JCPOA, but Iran that had reacted relatively cautiously to Trump’s move, began to up the ante in December 2020, by passing a law to increase uranium enrichment first to 20 and then to 60-percent purity by early 2021.

Western officials and experts say that there is no justifiable civilian use for 60-percent enriched uranium. The only likely purpose is to purify uranium to 90 percent needed for assembling a bomb.

Negotiations that began in April of that year to revive the JCPOA came to an impasse in 2022, and Iran continued to accumulate enriched uranium. American officials believe that Tehran would be able to weaponize in just a few months if it decides to go nuclear.

In the light of recent reports about secret talks to reach some sort of a limited deal, whereby Iran would cap its uranium enrichment, Khamenei said, “It is possible that they [the West] would want to reach an agreement in some areas, but the nuclear infrastructure should not be affected.”

Iran has deployed thousands of advanced enrichment machines known as centrifuges in the past two years that can turn out enough 90-percent purified fissile material for a bomb in just two weeks. Even an agreement to freeze enrichment now, would leave Iran in the advantageous position of remaining at the nuclear threshold. 

Any limited agreement, which the US has denied, would most likely leave these centrifuges in place.

Despite Washington’s denials there are signs of some steps signaling attempts to somewhat reduce the extent of disagreement.

Reports on Saturday indicated that the Biden administration has allowed Iraq to make available $2.7 billion of Iranian funds blocked in Iraqi banks due to US sanctions. This is so far the largest tranche of money Washington has allowed to be released, although it has been suspicious of Iranian machinations in Iraq to launder money.

Khamenei also reiterated his long-held position that the West and UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) cannot be trusted. 

Any negotiation or nuclear agreement should receive Khamenei’s approval, since he has the final say in all important political, military and economic issues, as the Supreme Leader.

The hacktivist group produced documents in May showing that it breached 120 servers of the presidential office, getting access to internal communications, meetings minutes, President Ebrahim Raisi’s online conference platforms and about 1,300 computers inside the offices.

The MEK-affiliated Telegram account Uprising till Overthrow has been releasing the documents on its social media accounts. The latest report shows that 190 hectares of government-controlled land in the southern city of Khorramshahr on the Persian Gulf was given freely to the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI).

The head of the Atomic Energy Organization claimed in a letter to First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber that in order to "accelerate the process of exploration and extraction of uranium ore throughout Iran", the government laws should be changed in this regard.

In one of the documents, the security chief of Fordow nuclear plant -- an Iranian underground uranium enrichment facility located 20 miles (32 km) northeast of the Iranian city of Qom – had asked for about 150 hectares of public land to be given to the nuclear facility to increase its security buffer zone as work continued to expand Iran's nuclear capabilities.

Earlier in May, the group Uprising till Overthrow also hacked into the Islamic Republic’s foreign ministry servers, disabling 210 sites and online services and leaking another large batch of documents.

In the new cyberattack, the group is said to have gained access to “tens of thousands confidential documents” but has so far released some of them. The number of the published documents is still so large that analyzing them will take weeks.

The hacker group also published a document that contains information about the request of the Atomic Energy Organization to import 35 vehicles with an engine capacity of more than 2,500 cc.

Hassan Rouhani, President Raisi's predecessor, had banned the import of Completely Built Units (CBUs) in July 2018, allowing only Completely Knocked-Down (CKDs), which are imported in parts rather than assembled.

Any official organization needs to receive foreign currency from the government and permission to import vehicles or machinery, but cars are particularly tightly regulated, because of the cost for the government in hard currencies.

The difficulty with obtaining US dollars or euros for imports became acute after former US President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal and imposed tough sanctions on Iran’s oil exports, the main source of its revenues.

With French automakers withdrawing from the Iranian market after the imposition of the US sanctions, CKD imports of a variety of Chinese vehicles have flooded the market since then.

The group also claimed that their access to the internal systems of the president’s office was so vast that they sent e-mails to the office’s recipients address list with photos of the leaders of MEK and photos of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Raisi with red crosses over them as well as slogans of “Death to Khamenei” and “Hail to Rajavi”, the current leader of the opposition group.

The president’s office immediately reacted, denying that “the official website of the president” was down due to any attack.

Among the released documents, there is correspondence between the president’s office and the office of the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) under besmirched chief Ali Shamkhani, confirming rumors that the regime's top security chief was forced out after the President said he had failed to do enough to quash riots, despite killing over 500 civilians and arresting more than 20,000.

“Despite some negotiations in New York, there is no impending agreement soon because of US obstructions,” Mojataba Tavangar tweeted on Saturday.

Tavangar is a ‘principlist’ Iranian politician, which means he can be considered a hardliner, although on some issues he has exhibited flexibility in the past. Unlike many other hardliners dominating the parliament, Tavangar is a more educated politician having spent years as a researcher.

“America is trying to get more concessions from Iran in nuclear matters, in exchange for releasing frozen funds, a policy violating the law and in contradiction to Iran’s interests,” Tavangar added.

Iran International reported in January that US special envoy for Iran, Robert Malley had held three meetings with Iran’s UN ambassador Saeed Iravani in New York in the closing weeks of 2022. The State Department never denied this report, and said Washington had many channels to relay messages to Tehran.

The reports of more meetings resurfaced in June, when the Financial Times and others reported that meetings have taken place in New York and perhaps in Oman, which has long acted as a mediator between Tehran and Washington.

The State Department did not directly deny the latest reports either. Asked about the media reports, deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said, “I don’t have anything to announce on this front.”

He added, “As you’ve heard me say previously, we have the means to communicate with Iran and deliver messages to them that are in America’s interest to do so. We’re not going to detail the contents of those messages or the means of those deliveries. I don’t have anything additional to add there.” He refused to comment further.

The Iranian lawmaker Tavangar in his tweet also claimed that the United States is pushing Iran toward direct talks, and even regarding American prisoners (hostages) in Iran is not negotiating seriously. He described media reports about secret talks and progress toward a deal as “media hype” saying that Washington’s goal is to highlight Iran’s economic problems and inflict “a shock” on the market.

Tavangar’s statements could well be an indirect message by the regime to its domestic audience, as the news about a possible deal has led to some premature hopes. The Iranian rial has risen against the US dollar in the past week, and any negative diplomatic news could push the battered currency toward a steep fall.

It is worth noting that many media outlets in Tehran, under tight government control, widely reported on Tavangar’s tweet.

Iran International also reported May 27, that talks on the release of Tehran’s frozen assets could result in a deal soon, based on a source with direct knowledge of the talks. Apparently, the talks were focused on funds held in Iraq and South Korea. The money in Iraqi banks could be as much as $10 billion or more by most recent estimates mentioned by Iranian officials. Iraq imports natural gas and electricity from Iran but is barred by US sanctions to make dollar transfers to Tehran.

The funds in South Korea could be exchanged for the release of three US dual nationals held hostage in Iran.

ILNA news website in Tehran reported Saturday that Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed the issue of the funds blocked in Iraq with his Iraqi counterpart during his recent visit to Saudi Arabia. Apparently Baghdad is urging Washington to find a solution, the website said.