Iran’s nuclear programme

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    The Guardian view on the Iranian nuclear deal: hopes grow for the JCPOA, but time is tight | Editorial

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    Good news does not always arrive in obvious forms. Six years ago, the Iran nuclear deal was a diplomatic triumph earned by a long and painful process. This weekend saw a much more modest but equally necessary victory. Though Iran has reduced the International Atomic Energy Agency’s access for ensuring compliance with the deal, a three-month agreement reached on Sunday will allow continued monitoring. As the director general of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, observed, it “salvages the situation for now”. The fear has been that though Tehran’s non-compliance has been carefully calibrated to date, its next steps might be irreversible.After four years of havoc wrought by the Trump administration, which abandoned the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and did its best – or worst – to kill the deal, this is welcome news. It indicates new political will and flexibility on the part of Iran as well as the US. There is now a real prospect of informal talks, brokered by the EU. Tehran appears reassured that the Biden administration does not plan to leverage Donald Trump’s sanctions to gain more concessions, as it had suspected. So there is more time on the clock – but not much. The supreme leader’s speech on Monday, saying that Iran could enrich uranium up to 60% if needed is a reassurance to hardliners internally as well as a reminder to the US. A short-term fix must pave the way for a longer-term solution. On the US side, the Biden administration’s rhetoric and appointments, alongside its coordination with the “E3” – Germany, France and the UK – indicate an eagerness to make progress. Both governments face formidable domestic opposition. Joe Biden has a huge agenda and limited political capital. In Iran, the short term IAEA deal was bitterly attacked in parliament. Elections in June are likely to see hardliners more hostile to the US prosper, though a more unified political establishment might in some ways simplify matters. In moving before President Hassan Rouhani leaves office in August, the two sides will be dealing with familiar faces and the US can draw on his attachment to the deal. The longer diplomacy takes, the more progress Iran will make on its nuclear programme.Credit is due to the E3 for shoring up the JCPOA against the odds, despite intense pressure from the Trump administration and its inability to find an effective economic mechanism for support. That commitment has paid off. But much more still needs to be done to save the deal. The US does not want to look like it is going easy on Tehran. But it could quietly end its obstruction of Iran’s $5bn (£3.5bn) IMF request for Covid relief, or give the nod to the release of frozen funds in other countries under arrangements ensuring they are used for humanitarian purposes.The ultimate obstacle is the credibility deficit left by Mr Trump. Iran is all too aware that a new administration may not only discard but trample on its existing commitments. That means that a “more for more” process to go beyond the deal and resolve outstanding issues regarding missiles and regional relations will be ultimately be more necessary than ever. The Trump years have shown that a narrow deal like the JCPOA cannot be stable in the current environment. But there can be no progress without a return to it. More

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      Biden presidency 'may herald new start for Saudi-Iranian relations'

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      An opportunity for a new beginning between Saudi Arabia and Iran has been presented by Joe Biden’s presidency, two leading Saudi and Iranians close to their diplomatic leaderships are proposing in an article in the Guardian today.The article is co-written by Abdulaziz Sager, the Saudi Arabian chairman and founder of the Gulf Research Center, and Hossein Mousavian, a former senior Iranian diplomat and now a nuclear specialist based at Princeton University.Their proposals are the fruit of a track 2, or backchannel initiative that has been under way privately for months.Their discussions are one of the few forms of private dialogue under way between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and to the extent that their discussions have been approved by serving diplomats in both capitals the initiative may signal a new willingness on both sides to the use the advent of the Biden presidency to explore an end to the years long enmity between the two countries.In an interview with the reformist Iranian newspaper Etemaad last week, the Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif, hinted at a new approach. He also accepted that opportunities for dialogue with Riyadh had been missed, adding that it was imperative that Iran was the pioneer in this enterprise.He said that “we have no territorial claim or interest in accessing the natural resources of other regional countries; therefore, it is Iran that can initiate this effort from a position of wealth. We shouldn’t wait for others.”Sager and Mousavian warn of the consequences if Saudi Arabia and Iran remain in conflict, writing that “we remain at the mercy of a single miscalculation that could turn the protracted cold war between our states hot, potentially ushering in disastrous consequences for the entire region”.They claim that both countries perceive the other as seeking to dominate in the region, with Riyadh convinced that Iran is trying to encircle the kingdom with its allied proxy supporters while Tehran views Saudi Arabia as in alliance with the US to undermine the Islamic Republic.“Riyadh charges Iran with interfering in the internal affairs of sovereign states like Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain, and Iraq; Tehran sees Saudi Arabia doing the same in these very countries.”They urge both sides to agree – perhaps with the help of the UN – a set of principles around non-interference, the inviolability of national boundaries, rejection of violence, respecting the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations, respect for religious minorities and abandonment of the use of proxy forces to advance national interests. The principles also support the free flow of oil and navigation, and rejection of the procurement of weapons of mass destruction.The authors stress: “Postponing de-escalation would be a grave mistake, as the region has proved time and again that on the rare occasion that opportunities for constructive dialogue present themselves, they must be grasped swiftly before they vanish.”They admit that the task may seem impossible, but claim that both sides have taken steps to show they are willing to avoid an inescapable zero-sum confrontation, for instance by quiet cooperation over facilitating Iranian Muslim participation in the hajj pilgrimage.
On Thursday the French president, Emmanuel Macron, was reported as saying Saudi Arabia may need to be involved in any follow on to the Iran nuclear deal signed by Iran, the US, three European powers, China and Russia. There is a widespread expectation that if the US and Iran could get back into mutual compliance with the deal discussions about Iran’s relations with its regional neighbours would have to follow. More

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      Trump 'considered striking Iran's nuclear sites' after election loss

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      Donald Trump asked top aides last week about the possibility of striking Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming weeks, according to a New York Times report.
      During a meeting at the Oval Office on Thursday, the outgoing US president asked several top aides, including the vice-president, Mike Pence, the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and the chairman of the joint chiefs, Gen Mark Milley, “whether he had options to take action against Iran’s main nuclear site in the coming weeks”, the newspaper says.
      The senior officials “dissuaded the president from moving ahead with a military strike”, warning him that an attack could escalate into a broader conflict in the final weeks of his presidency, the Times writes.
      Trump reportedly asked the question after a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran was continuing to stockpile uranium.
      According to the Times, the most likely target of such a strike would have been Natanz, where the IAEA reported that Tehran’s “uranium stockpile was now 12 times larger than permitted under the nuclear accord that Mr Trump abandoned in 2018”, three years after it was signed in an attempt to curb Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
      Iran has long been Trump’s bete noire, and he reintroduced sanctions then tightened them even further after scrapping the nuclear accord.
      European partners in the accord, which have struggled to keep the deal afloat despite Trump’s efforts to torpedo it, hope for a renewed diplomatic approach after Joe Biden’s election victory on 3 November, although Trump refuses to concede defeat.
      The Trump administration has pledged to increase the punitive measures, which some critics see as an attempt to build a “wall of sanctions” that Biden would have difficulty dismantling when he takes office next year. More

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      Iran sanctions: nearly all UN security council unites against 'unpleasant' US

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      The extent of US isolation at the UNhas been driven home by formal letters from 13 of the 15 security council members opposing Trump administration attempts to extend the economic embargo on Iran.The letters by the council members were all issued in the 24 hours since the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, came to the UN’s New York headquarters to declare Iran in non-compliance with a 2015 nuclear deal.Under that deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA), comprehensive UN sanctions on Iran would be restored 30 days after the declaration. But almost every other council member has issued letters saying that the US has no standing to trigger this sanctions “snapback” because it left the JCPOA in May 2018.The US has said it is still technically a participant because it is named as one in a 2015 security council resolution endorsing the JCPOA. The argument was rejected by France, the UK and Germany even before Pompeo made his declaration.Since then, Reuters reported that it had seen letters from Russia, China, Germany, Belgium, Vietnam, Niger, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, South Africa, Indonesia, Estonia and Tunisia, all rejecting the US position.Only the Dominican Republic has yet to issue a formal letter on the subject. Last week the Caribbean state was the only security council member to back the USwhen it tried to extend an arms embargo on Iran. Pompeo visited the island two days after that vote.Council members who normally consider themselves US allies on most issues said they would have supported Washington if a compromise had been found, in which the arms embargo could have been extended for a limited time period. The defeat of the US resolution on the embargo led directly to Pompeo’s legal gambit to try to snap back UN sanctions.Diplomats at the UN said the depth of US isolation was in part a reflection of the abrasive style used by Pompeo, who accused Europeans of choosing to “side with the ayatollahs”, and the US ambassador to the UN, Kelly Craft, a political appointee.“The Americans were actually being over the top in their ridiculousness,” one diplomat said.“The underlying point here is that most countries on the security council basically agree with the US that Iran is not a nice country and it having nuclear weapons and more arms is not a good thing,” the diplomat said. “But the Americans misplayed their hand so often, so aggressively, that they isolated themselves from people not on policy, but on just being unpleasant.” More