Interview with Farhikhtegan Newspaper, April 13, 2025 -
The interview was in Persian and the translation below was done by Ai.
Reaching a good agreement is a goal that both the American negotiating team and the country's foreign policy team seem to be pursuing, but reaching a good agreement has its dos and don'ts. To examine these requirements, we spoke with Sasan Karimi, an expert on international affairs, the text of which you can read below.
First, we must prevent the activation of snapback
Sasan Karimi considered one of the products of a good agreement to be distancing ourselves from the activation of snapback and said: "The products of a good agreement are that it can distance us from snapback at this moment. This is the first priority. The next priority is to remove secondary sanctions and then be able to untie the chains from the country's hands; I do not believe that an agreement will be sustainable, because it is fundamentally not very possible. But what should be done is to try to make the agreement solid, but at the same time we should try to make it reversible and to achieve something that has the most beneficiaries and the fewest enemies, both domestically, globally and within the United States. In the United States, this agreement is in place because it can create a position for Mr. Trump that is sustainable; because no one is going to disrupt the agreement of the most radical person and because all the forces of the United States - whether the administration, Congress or the Court - are now aligned. A good agreement is an agreement that has the most beneficiaries; within the United States, within Iran and in the international environment. In fact, this is the only model that can be expected to have some stability. In addition, we should move towards distancing and then lifting the sanctions.”
We have the opportunity to maneuver on technical levers
In response to the question of what concessions will be given and received to achieve a good agreement, Karimi said: “This goes back to the context of the negotiations. In any case, the concessions we give are technical and the concessions we get are sanctions relief, and what we paid for in the negotiations are technical and nuclear, and what we received is sanctions relief. Sanction relief is something that is reversible anyway, our technical concessions should also be reversible, which is not a problem. What concessions should we give? It depends on the details of the negotiations. But our technical distance to the JCPOA today is much greater than in 2015 when we reached the JCPOA. We have much more to give to return to the JCPOA. So we can maneuver more on this amount. Of course, we can give part of this and give the other part for something else so that we can cancel the secondary sanctions. But our technical levers are many levers and we can maneuver more with these levers.”
Supporting the negotiating team is essential for reaching a good agreement. Reaching an agreement has requirements in foreign policy and domestic policy. Karimi said about its most important requirements: "One of the requirements is that the disasters that befell the JCPOA team should not be repeated. It is possible that one of the concerns in the back of the mind of the negotiating team is that after reaching any agreement or understanding, it should be under the absolute pressure of the other side. This is not correct, it is not ethical, and it is far from political ethics. The support that currently exists for the negotiators must always continue, and whatever happens is the decision of the system, the government, the nation, and the country. Naturally, they will go with open arms, and you must support what they achieve. I think that continued support and continued support for the loved ones who go to negotiate is the most important issue domestically. The international situation is also a complex situation, but it is not necessarily to our detriment. "Parts of it are in our favor, and we must, in this situation, use the many stakeholders in the region, including China, Russia, Europe, and the United States, to help us reach an agreement. That is, we must try to make it more profitable for them if we reach an agreement than if we don't." Karimi also said about the possibility of a good agreement being achieved or not: "We are at the beginning of a rocky road."
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