Interview with Etemad Newspaper, April 17, 2025 -
The interview was in Persian and the translation below was done by Ai.
Foreign policy analyst Sasan Karimi speaks about the special negotiating method of the United States in dealing with Iran. An issue that, from the analyst's perspective, may not have been taken very seriously by the media and officials. In an interview with Etemad, Karimi refers to the recent contradictory positions of American officials in dealing with Iran: "The positions that have recently emerged in the positions of the Americans go back to the contradiction of the views in the White House. Steve Whittock and some people close to him are in favor of more appeasement regarding Iran's enrichment and other issues related to Iran, but on the other hand, the hardliners in the White House are trying to pursue the idea of more pressure on the Islamic Republic. On the other hand, the special negotiating methods of the United States have also caused problems for Iran. It seems that the media and even the officials in Iran have been oblivious to this particular method.”
He explains this negotiation method: “The American negotiation method is that by settling positions and statements in the first meeting, they make Iran’s economy highly conditional on the success of the negotiations and the end of the negotiations, and then in the following weeks of the negotiations, they try to turn these domestic expectations into a lever for accepting the other side’s demands. After the first round of the Araqchi-Wittkoff meeting, the dollar and the coin in Iran face a significant drop and the country’s markets turn green. In the second week, these same improved indicators become a lever for further pressure on Iran. Therefore, in the middle of the week, we face an inflation of the United States’ demands.”
According to this analyst, “Iran is facing two rivals during these weeks. One rival is America and the other is the improved economic indicators and the hopeful public that demands the continuation of negotiations at any cost. The Iranian negotiator in such circumstances must face two rivals and two types of expectations and must realize national interests from them. ”
Explaining why some contradictory positions were taken by American officials, he says: “What happened on Tuesday night is that a high-level meeting was held at the White House on Iran, Mr. Witkoff’s tweet was made after the meeting and generated a lot of feedback. He refers to Mr. Trump’s positions and says that it is Trump who should make the main decision and be satisfied with the negotiations. In fact, Witkoff has corrected his previous verbal statements regarding enrichment. I think Witkoff’s tweet on Tuesday night should be taken into account. »
In response to Etamad’s question, can an agreement be imagined in the short term with these contradictions in the positions of American officials? Karimi says: “No agreement can be imagined in the short term. One of our problems is that after the start of negotiations last Saturday, many are waiting for the negotiations to conclude in the first session! And some others are looking for an agreement next Saturday! We are talking about an old dispute and the need to resolve continuous equations that have been formed over the years. Therefore, the issue of time is a contradictory issue for us. On the one hand, Trump is impatient and globalist and wants to create an achievement quickly. The next issue is the hardliners, who will have more influence on Trump the longer the time is, and the next issue is the snapback deadline in the next quarter (August). By this date, we must reach a common understanding on our nuclear program. "The closer the time for the snap election approaches, the closer the European Troika countries are to the extremists. Because they are losing their only effective tool." The foreign policy analyst believes, "On the other hand, reaching a general and interpretable agreement is also dangerous for Iran. Such an agreement will create many problems for Iran in the future."
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