Iran and six world powers made last-ditch efforts to strike a historic deal on Tehran’s controversial nuclear program which would hopefully resolve one of the major security crises today.
The negotiations between six leading world powers and Tehran aimed at reaching a comprehensive nuclear deal after 12-year impasse can be written into the textbooks of international diplomacy as an example of mastering the hard-taught art of compromise and consensus. While negotiating parties at Vienna talks missed self-imposed July, 7 deadline to wrap up a deal, the delay never led to the break-up of the dialogue or any walkouts. It only reinforced all parties’ efforts and resolved to go into more rounds of negotiations, extending the deadline for Friday to achieve positive results.
It should be noted that negotiators had already missed deadlines last July and November, as well as this March and June. However, at this point no one seemingly had any doubt that negotiating process has already passed the point of no return and this is a question of not “if” but “when”. As Marie Harf, Strategic communications advisor to State Secretary Kerry put it: “we’re more concerned about a quality deal than we are about the clock”. On their part, Russian senior diplomats hinted that all sides came closer to completing the deal as never before.
Meantime, opponents of the deal are desperate for finding last-minute efforts to launch propaganda counter-offensive and prove that the future deal poses more dangers than opportunities. The arguments of skeptics are summarized in an article “Nine red lines for a nuclear agreement with Iran”, carried by the Jerusalem Post and written by Frank Gaffney Jr. and Fred Fleitz.
“But what would a “good” deal with Iran look like? To answer this question, the Center for Security Policy, in conjunction with many experts, came up with the following nine red lines, which we have nicknamed “The National Security Nine”, for an acceptable nuclear agreement with Iran”, — authors say.
According to the story, these red lines are:
1. No uranium enrichment.
2. No plutonium-producing reactors.
3. Robust verification.
4. Questions must be answered about Possible Military Dimensions (PMDs).
5. Lift sanctions in stages in response to Iranian compliance.
6. Iran must curtail and agree to limitations on its ballistic missile program.
7. Iran must agree to end its meddling in regional conflicts and sponsorship of terror.
8. Iran must cease its hostility toward Israel.
9. Iran must release all US prisoners”.
Vladimir Sotnikov, Senior Research Fellow at the Center for International Security, Institute of World Economy and International Relations (studio guest), Gleb Ivashentsov, Russia's former Ambassador to South Korea and Myanmar (studio guest), Dr. Rajeshwari P.Rajagopalan, Senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, Justin Dargin, Middle East geopolitical expert at the University of Oxford and Thomas Seifert, Editor in Chief of Wiener Zeitung paper (Vienna) shared their views on the issue.
