Resumption of nuclear talks: European optimism and Iranian fears

Mohamed Shaat

Both Iran and the European Union agreed on a date for the resumption of nuclear talks, amid statements by officials in Tehran revealing an attempt to obstruct these negotiations and doubts about their results.

Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, demanded guarantees that the United States would not back down from the agreement, saying in press statements that the United States “is not ready to provide guarantees if the current situation does not change, the outcome of the negotiations is already clear.”

For his part, Ali Bagheri Kani, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister and head of the talks team, tweeted that the talks would start in Vienna on December 29 and that this date was set in a phone conversation with Enrique Mora, the European Union representative in the talks.

For its part, the EU’s External Action Service announced in a statement that the Joint Commission of the International Atomic Energy Agency will start its work in Vienna on November 29, adding that “the negotiating parties continue to discuss the possibility of the United States returning to the UN Security Council and how to ensure that all parties implement this agreement fully and effectively.”

Iranian officials are demanding guarantees from the United States, while the United States says that the president cannot specify the tasks for the governments that will succeed him, and this has become a point of contention between the two countries.

“The call for negotiation during the war (with Iraq) now has useful similarities,” Shamkhani wrote on Twitter. “The difference between today and the days of war thanks to the revolution and the overall strength of the resistance in Iran is original, continuous and based on internal capabilities.”

Shamkhani’s expression of pessimism appears to be a reaction to messages exchanged on Twitter between an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman and a US Republican senator about the legal authority of the US president.

Responding to a tweet by Republican Senator Ted Cruz, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh called the US government “rebellious” and called for an objective US guarantee that the president’s signature would be valid under any potential agreement.

Senator Cruz wrote that “the next president of the United States, who will be a Republican, will once again withdraw from any agreement signed with Iran without congressional approval.”

Shamkhani’s statements reveal the existence of a current within the Iranian regime that rejects nuclear negotiations and sees hostility towards the United States as a strength and survival for the regime.

The statements also come as a reassurance to the militias and Iran’s arms in the region that it will continue to be able to protect and support them in light of the demands of Iran’s neighboring countries, especially the Gulf countries, to stop Tehran from interfering in the affairs of countries in the region and to stop supporting terrorism and militias in these countries.

Shamkhani’s statements also reveal a conflict of interests within the Iranian regime, and the regime’s conservative movement’s attempt to maintain its image, which has often attacked the nuclear agreement.

Iran’s entry into the negotiations remains like drinking a cup of poison, in light of the deteriorating economic conditions, high prices and high inflation, and Tehran’s transformation from an energy exporter to an importing country, especially in the field of the electricity sector, which it started importing from Turkmenistan.