U.S. media quoted officials from the administration of President Joe Biden as saying that Tehran has kept the nuclear deal talks secret since the last round of Vienna talks began. But Iran has made concessions on sensitive issues in order to agree on the nuclear deal document.
CNN, citing a U.S. official, said Iran dropped another important requirement related to nuclear inspections as the negotiation process continued. He also explained that reports that Washington has accepted or considered new concessions to Iran are absolutely false reports.
As for Iran, Mohammad Marandi, an adviser to the Iranian delegation participating in the Vienna negotiations, denied that Iran had not made concessions to restart the nuclear deal. He also stressed that the unpublished text of the agreement will prove to the world which side has waived most of its demands in the Vienna nuclear talks.
U.S. backs down
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Marandi explained that since the start of the nuclear talks, the US has made great concessions, especially the pledge not to withdraw from the nuclear deal or veto its provisions.
He emphasized that Tehran has succeeded in preserving the technological achievements and infrastructure of its nuclear facilities as the United States has abandoned its demands to clear all aspects of Iran’s nuclear program.
Marandi also said: “Compared to the request made by the United States eight months ago, the text of the agreement that has been studied these days is fundamentally changed at all levels, especially in maintaining a series of sanctions against Iran. Because in the At the end of Iran’s demands, Washington has agreed to lift sanctions on Tehran.”
Has Tehran relinquished its demand not to pursue those contentious issues it has with the IAEA? An adviser to the Iranian negotiating mission responded that Iran would not implement any possible agreement until the revision of the agreement document was concluded.
Marandi believes that U.S. rhetoric about Iran’s concessions in the nuclear talks is actually an “early evasion” that is meant to quell U.S. public opinion in an effort to convince U.S. opponents of the nuclear deal.
Indirect talk between the US and Iran (Al Jazeera)
Revolutionary Guards and Terrorists List
Marandi stressed that removing the name of the Revolutionary Guards from the “blacklist of terrorist groups” was not a prerequisite for Iran to reach a nuclear deal. But he said Iran would continue to designate U.S. Central Command as a terrorist organization even if the United States removed the Revolutionary Guard from its list of U.S. terrorist groups.
Mohammad Jamshidi, assistant director of the Iranian presidential office, revealed that the removal of the name of the Revolutionary Guards from the list of terrorist organizations was first proposed by the United States.
Jamshidi tweeted: “The United States is proposing again to remove the Revolutionary Guards from the terrorist list, conditioned on Iran not to pursue the murderer of Qasem Soleimani, the former commander of the Revolutionary Guards ‘Quds Brigade’. removed. But Iran rejected the offer.” He also said Washington had made the proposal three more times to ensure the safety of its troops. But the U.S. eventually backed down after Iran rejected all of those offers.
On the other hand, Abbas Aslani, a researcher from the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies, believes that flexibility shown by negotiating parties is one of the foundations of the view of getting closer in any negotiating process. He also emphasized that Iran has not abandoned its demands on nuclear negotiations, but ignored some of the talks on the track, including a request to remove the name of the Revolutionary Guards from the US terrorist list. These temporarily waived requirements will continue to be followed outside the framework of the nuclear deal.
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Aslani suggested that the purpose of the nuclear talks was to bring the United States back to its commitments in the Joint Action Plan it withdrew in 2018. The United States‘ return to the nuclear deal is the biggest concession to those demands to expand the scope of the nuclear deal to include Tehran’s regional policy and missile program.
flexibility and initiative
As for Iran’s recent flexibility in nuclear talks, researcher Asrani said it was because Tehran had fulfilled most of the demands it had insisted on during the Vienna negotiations.
He also said: “The U.S. would be better off talking about a solution to Iran’s concerns than calling it a concession to sensitive demands.” He also stressed that the initiatives put forward by Iran and the European Union have helped to bring closer views on the scope of U.S. assurances and sanctions that must be lifted. For the Iranian people, this cannot be called Iran giving up its basic demands.
Aslani also said Tehran was eager for talks to succeed and restore the nuclear deal, thus promising not to divulge any information about U.S. concessions. He also emphasized that the dispute between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency is political, stemming from the dispute between the United States and Iran, and that restarting the nuclear deal will eliminate these contentious issues.
He concluded by saying that Tehran is ready to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency. But Iran has demanded that the cooperation document not be politicized, and hopes that technical issues can be resolved to dispel rumors and allegations by opponents of the nuclear deal.