Visit of the chief Iranian negotiator to China: Maneuver or an alliance in the face of Washington?

Ali Rajab

In an attempt to salvage the nuclear deal, with the continued violations of the regime of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and after France signaled one of the most prominent signatories of the agreement that the issue of activating the mechanism for resolving the dispute with Iran is under discussion, which leads to the imposition of international sanctions, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrivedon Saturday (November 30th) to Beijing for political consultations focused on the future of the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

Araghchi will hold high-level talks with senior Chinese officials, Mehr news agency said, adding that the Iranian official’s meetings will focus on ways to maintain the nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

The French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Wednesday 27 November 2019 that the issue of activating the dispute resolution mechanism provided for in the nuclear agreement with Iran, which may lead to the imposition of international sanctions is under consideration; due to Tehran’s repeated violation of the agreement.

The French minister stressed that the activation of the mechanism comes against the backdrop of sequential actions taken by the Iranian authorities not to comply with the joint comprehensive plan of action, adding that his country still calls for an end to escalation.

For his part, Araghchi threatened what he called “changing the Iranian approach” towards the nuclear deal, which the United States withdrew in May last year, calling on European countries to make efforts to maintain this agreement.

On November 25, 2019, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said that a meeting of the Joint Committee on the Iranian nuclear agreement and the 4 + 1 group will be held in the Austrian capital of Vienna on December 6.

Iran announced in early November, the start of the fourth phase of reducing its obligations under the nuclear deal, in response to what Tehran calls the failure of Western countries to implement its obligations to Iran after the United States unilaterally withdrew from the agreement in May 2018.

On Nov. 18, a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Tehran had violated another clause of the nuclear deal with major powers.

In a surprise statement, the Iranian ambassador to the UK, Hamid Baidi-Nejad, told the Independent newspaper that his country’s government is facing great pressure in the past period from the internal Iranian political forces and citizens, who are demanding that it withdraw from the NPT.

The ambassador said that these internal proposals come in response to the failure of the Europeans to implement their decisions on the nuclear deal, saying that Tehran will continue to enrich uranium once every two months, and will not stop unless the Europeans to the agreement again; because Tehran will not adhere to this agreement alone.

According to Iranian expert Dr. Mohammad Banaia, the visit of the chief negotiator of the Iranian nuclear program Abbas Araghchi to Beijing comes within the framework of the policy of playing on conflicts between major countries to achieve Iranian goals and interests in the continuation of the current status of the nuclear agreement, as well as avoiding the imposition of any international sanctions Major international powers such as China have their weight in international institutions such as the United Nations and the Security Council, as well as one of the participants in the nuclear agreement.

He added to the Reference that the visit of Araghchito Beijing aims to get Iran triumphantly in the file of the nuclear agreement on the administration of US President Donald Trump, with the end of his first term, saying that Iran aims from the visit to Beijing to get support from the Chinese government in the face of US pressure and sanctions, and thus play a temptation for the Chinese side to invest with wide advantages, in addition to cooperation in the areas of security and counter-terrorism, especially in Afghanistan.