Foreign Minister travels to Moscow
Iran wants to stick to nuclear deal
03/14/2022, 7:23 p.m
The renegotiated nuclear agreement with Iran is threatened again in the last few meters. The reason are special requests from Moscow as a result of the Ukraine war. The West categorically rejects the request. Tehran assures that it is not in a dead end.
Despite the situation aggravated by the Ukraine war, Iran does not want to withdraw from talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal. “We will remain in the Vienna talks,” tweeted Ali Shamkhani, head of the Supreme National Security Council. However, Iran’s “legal and logical” demands would have to be met and a “strong agreement” reached.
A spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry said the ball was in the US court: “We are not at the point of agreement yet because there are outstanding issues that Washington must decide.” You are “only on a short break and not in a dead end”. The current break should only serve to further agreements.
The talks, which have been going on for months, actually seemed to be well advanced. A week ago, however, Russia unexpectedly demanded extensive guarantees that Russian-Iranian trade would be exempt from any Western sanctions imposed in connection with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The West rejects that.
The day before, the Wall Street Journal quoted a senior US State Department official as saying that the US is not negotiating exemptions from sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine war in order to salvage the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Instead, the US would seek an alternative deal without Russia if the Kremlin didn’t back down from its demands at the last minute. Moscow has a week to withdraw its request for written guarantees
Germany, France, Great Britain and China are also involved in the talks. The question at stake is how Iran can use nuclear energy peacefully without acquiring nuclear weapons.
Iran sends foreign ministers to Moscow
The USA had unilaterally terminated the agreement in 2018 under its then President Donald Trump, as a result of which Iran no longer complied with all the conditions. The nuclear deal is intended to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons. Iran denies such intentions. Tensions also rose after Iran fired missiles at the city of Erbil on Sunday. Erbil is the capital of the autonomous Iraqi Kurdish region.
Iran has now stated that Kurdish terrorists, the USA and Israel have attacked the Islamic Republic from Iraqi territory in the past. Iran’s relationship with regional rival Saudi Arabia has also deteriorated again.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahain is expected in Moscow tomorrow, Tuesday, to talk about the nuclear deal. The Iranian newspaper Nur News described the visit as a platform for serious, frank and forward-looking talks between two countries, which showed that they could work very closely, decisively and successfully together on complex issues.
The Foreign Ministry in Moscow said that the focus of the talks between the Amirabdollahians and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov should be saving the nuclear deal. The war against Ukraine, which Moscow calls a “special military operation,” is also said to be an issue.