Iranian experts have reportedly begun reviewing the so-called “final text” proposed by the European Union in an effort to revive the 2015 nuclear deal from which the US unilaterally exited in 2018.
According to Iran’s Nour News, in Tehran “a high-level meeting has not yet been held in this regard” but “after the completion of the expert investigations, the preliminary results [will be] presented to the relevant decision-making levels for the final summary.”
In June, the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency censured Iran for traces of uranium that were found at three of its main nuclear sites.
Dr. Mohammad Marandi, who served as an adviser to Iranian negotiators in Vienna, told CNN that at least one sticking point remains - the censure imposed on Iran by the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency in June "has to be closed once and for all."
The IAEA passed a motion criticizing Tehran in June after observers claimed to have discovered uranium particles in facilities they say aren’t listed as sites of nuclear enrichment.
Per Marandi, rescinding the censure is “a precondition for the implementation of a deal” since a future administration could use it as a pretext to withdraw from the deal as former President Donald Trump did in 2018.
“Otherwise Iranians have no doubt that the Americans will take advantage of this, or use this as a tool to undermine the agreement within weeks or at most months.”
Marandi criticized the US for hindering progress on a return to the deal in a recent appearance on Radio Sputnik’s Fault Lines, explaining that “the American government, what they do is mislead public opinion.”
“So they’ve said two things, both of which are false: One is that they say the Iranians are demanding assurances that are linked to a future US administration or president. That is false.”
“The assurances that the Iranians demand are from Biden and for the duration of his presidency,” explained Marandi. “So the Americans are misleading the public in order to stonewall.” In reality, he said, “the Iranians have not demanded anything from Biden about a future administration.” But the “western media repeats this time after time despite the fact that it is a lie,” he notes.
The second falsehood perpetuated by the US side, Marandi said, is that “the removal of the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] from the US [Foreign Terrorist Organization] list is a precondition.” But that, he says, is “also false”—“the US creates this false narrative in order to justify dragging their feet.”
In reality, “what the Iranians want is assurances that the US doesn’t betray Iran again.”
“Because when Obama signed the deal in 2015, he immediately cheated Iran. He immediately went and told the Treasury to threaten banks, to threaten oil companies, to threaten insurance companies, shipping companies, and other financial institutions not to work with Iran. And that was a clear violation of the nuclear deal. On the other hand Trump went and he tore up the deal. So while Iran was abiding by all of its commitments, the US under Obama, Trump, and now under Biden, have been violating their commitments.”
“So,” Mirandi says, “the Iranians want assurances that history does not repeat itself. And Iranians want the removal of sanctions on entities which impede the full implementation of the JCPOA, the nuclear deal. The US can’t expect Iran to commit itself to all of its obligations, yet the US only partially fulfills its obligations. They can’t have their cake and eat it too.”
“The Iranians are growing stronger, the US is growing weaker, and the smart thing for the US to do is to accept Iran’s reasonable demands and to ease the situation in the energy market as well as easing tensions in the region.”