Iran hints at possibility of returning to nuclear agreement: Significance of the timing

Mohamed Shaat

After a long period of halting the negotiations of the nuclear agreement between Iran and the West, Tehran has once again hinted at the possibility of completing it, blaming its traditional rival, the United States, for obstructing the agreement, ignoring that the Iranian demands and the gains it wanted to achieve were the reason for freezing the negotiations after the parties to the agreement neared its completion.

Reviving the nuclear deal

The Iranian side’s statements, which confirmed that reviving the agreement over its nuclear program remains possible, blamed the Western countries, especially the United States, for the delay. This came during the fifth anniversary of former US President Donald Trump’s announcement of his country’s withdrawal from the agreement that was concluded between Tehran and six international powers in 2015 after arduous negotiations.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said that reviving the nuclear agreement is technically and diplomatically possible, stressing during a press conference on Monday, May 8, “From this standpoint, negotiations between Iran and the rest of the parties to the nuclear agreement have taken place and good agreements have been reached,” adding, however, that “the other parties, especially the US administration, were late in this regard.”

Kanaani did not address the outstanding issues that were represented by the Iranian demands in the final stages of the negotiations, the foremost of which was the issue of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) finding traces of nuclear materials in unauthorized sites, in addition to Iran’s insistence on removing the Revolutionary Guards from the terrorist list, and these demands did not receive a response from the parties to the agreement.

Significance of the timing

Dr. Masoud Ibrahim, an academic researcher specialized in Iranian affairs, believes that the timing of the Iranian hints at the possibility of completing the agreement is significant, coming at a time when Tehran took serious steps recently to mitigate the severity of the crisis experienced by the Iranian regime, as the Saudi-Iranian consensus was the door through which Tehran once again entered the political and economic life after decades of isolation, and after Saudi Arabia began talking about normalizing relations with other countries in the region, most notably Egypt.

He added that the shuttle visits by Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian to Syria and Lebanon, as well as the visit of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to Syria, came within the framework of open relations that Tehran seeks in order to achieve the greatest gains on the ground, especially in Syria, while the nuclear file remains, which represents a major obstacle to the new and old Iranian policies, as Iranian policies with regard to foreign affairs are not separate but are interrelated and automatically adapt to changes and new circumstances.

Language of interests

Ibrahim pointed out that Iran no longer has any objection to restoring relations with all countries in the region, even Israel, as long as the interests and goals set are achieved, hence the hint on the part of Iran of the possibility of returning to the nuclear agreement, as it has found that the constant tug-of-war exhausted the regime and put it in an embarrassing position with the people until demonstrations took place against the head of the regime, and therefore a truce was necessary in which the regime sought to catch a breath and arrange its cards.

According to Ibrahim, it can be said that the continuation of Iranian policies in the current form may be an indication of new changes in the near future in terms of the nuclear file, as well as its relations with the countries of the region, provided that Tehran controls its arms in the region.