In an interview with ILNA, in response to this question, Mr. Amir Abdollahian spoke about the September document in his recent interview, which was supposed to be signed between Iran and the negotiating party, but the Foreign Ministry spokesman said that the issue of the September document is not a new issue, what is your opinion on raising this issue, he said: My guess is that this text is related to previous negotiations that were archived. So it is really nothing special. The reality is that the desirability of reviving the JCPOA has disappeared for the Biden administration, at least until the presidential elections, because they are unable to calculate and guarantee its political risk for the elections. So at least I am not waiting for the JCPOA to be revived. Our current administration’s efforts to create and replace the JCPOA with new words, etc., have not been cheap for the country. In fact, despite all the warnings of high-level experts in this field, the window for reviving the JCPOA was closed due to the 13th administration’s procrastination.
He added: “We remember that at the beginning of the administration, negotiations were suspended for several months without giving a specific reason, and after the new team returned to negotiations, they dreamily demanded that all six rounds of negotiations conducted by Iraqchi be abandoned, which even Russia and China objected to. Then they constantly made amendments to their positions and even the negotiating team. All these delays caused the world situation to change. In the meantime, whenever we came very close to an agreement, we did not have the finality without presenting the real reason. I do not know how much Russia, and especially Ulyanov himself, was guilty of this delay in negotiations. But in any case, warnings were given that were unfortunately ignored by senior officials of the Foreign Ministry.
This international affairs analyst emphasized: With the beginning of the Ukrainian war, the analysis was still that we would be in a better position. But perhaps today we see that such a calculation was not correct. What we should have pursued was to separate our fate from Russia and any other country and normalize relations with Iran, especially in the sale of oil and petrochemicals, and more importantly, banking issues. I must say that the best thing for an agreement to be established and normal conditions around a country are the duration of its implementation, which unfortunately, due to Trump coming to power, the JCPOA did not benefit from this duration. But if normal trade and banking relations with Iran were implemented for three years from 1400 to next year, the Biden administration would have taken advantage of the opportunity, and returning Iran to a secure situation would not have been easy. The 13th government faced this issue with a political perspective.
In response to the question of what the form of the agreement between Iran and the United States is today after the release of dual-citizen prisoners and the frozen funds. To what extent is this true? Bloomberg recently claimed that Iran would increase its oil sales in exchange for reducing uranium enrichment? Karimi said: "I must say again that the necessary information regarding Bloomberg's claim is not available to us. But if Iran has cooperated with the Agency, the Agency should also respond positively to this cooperation. We know that Iran's cooperation with the Agency is in three layers; safeguards, the Additional Protocol, and the JCPOA, of which only the first should be officially implemented at present. The second and third levels have been, firstly, voluntary, and secondly, in the form of the JCPOA. As a result, with the conditions of not implementing the JCPOA in full and according to Articles 26 and 36 of that document, Iran is not required to comply with any extra-safeguards."
He added: "Now, if there is an interaction where Iran carries out some of its non-commitment affairs, then in return, some of its bottlenecks, such as oil sales or banking affairs, should be eased. But I would like to remind you again that non-public, temporary, and partial agreements do not generally serve our main interests; because, more than anything, we must change the security environment that has been created against us in the world. With such measures, the government's hand may be more open in some areas, but investment and cooperation with Iran will not become normal; a Swedish, Emirati, or Malaysian capitalist or company or bank has nothing to ease his worries about sanctions by working with Iran. Therefore, he continues to grant this cooperation to his counterpart and goes to safer countries."
In response to the question of how the scenario ahead of the Iran-US agreement is predicted to be, whether the September agreement will lead to an agreement on paper, Karimi said: "At least I do not have such an analysis. All these efforts, if they are real and not news therapy for the market, are to revive the JCPOA."
Attempts to introduce a new term such as “lifting sanctions” or “September text” are not mature and insightful, and as we can see, they have not been useful to the economy, the Foreign Ministry, and the government in the medium term. At the same time, the revival of the JCPOA, in whatever form, is a blessed thing that I do not think is a really imminent issue. The agreements made so far seem to be topical; prisoner exchanges, opening up the transfer of national currency, etc., which, as mentioned, have short-term and especially everyday value for the country, and not strategic value. The main issue before us is to emerge from the cocoon of public sanctions, normalize our relations with the world, and especially eliminate the real psycho-political atmosphere that exists against the country, which cannot be achieved by making comments, secret negotiations, and unclear text.
In response to this question, in your opinion, is reducing uranium enrichment not a kind of interference in the law as a strategic measure to lift sanctions? Will the parliament not confront this issue? Karimi said: I think that in this regard, if we think about it, different parts of the country are with the current government and the government does not feel constrained in this regard. Basically, I see it as close to impossible for the parliament to confront any matter in the nuclear and foreign policy areas by the government in the current circumstances. The function of this law was for the parliament in a special situation and it was done. Today, not only does no one talk about such matters, but there is no objection from the parliament to non-public negotiations and non-public texts, etc. While we remember that when there was a clear and public text, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was constantly accused of negotiating and having a secret text that we know today were false. Therefore, fortunately, the current government is not subject to such pressures for any reason.
In response to the question of what behavior do you think the US's actions in establishing contact with Iran for negotiations were the result of? Did the US seek to reduce tensions with Iran by dismissing Robert Malley? Karimi said: No. Robert Malley's own position was in line with de-escalation. What is true is that the Biden administration is currently seeking to ensure that the situation in the region does not escalate. Stability of the situation surrounding Iran and its nuclear file is the best baggage that Biden can bring to the elections from these issues. Therefore, the current priority of the US is not to increase tensions on the one hand and not to revive the JCPOA on the other, so that it can reap the most benefits for its elections at the lowest cost.
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