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Iran celebrates shocking concessions by U.S. in nuclear deal talks, thanks Russia, China

by mcardinal

Chris Lange, FISM News

 

Talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran have reportedly resulted in a long list of U.S. concessions seen as major diplomatic coup for the world’s largest state sponsor of terror and an important win for Russia and China, according to Just the News.

Lead Russian negotiator Mikhail Ulyanov lauded efforts by his Iranian and Chinese counterparts to force the U.S. and its European allies to make numerous concessions. In a recent interview, Ulyanov praised the Iranians for fighting “like lions” in the Vienna talks and named China as a key player in securing the concessions. 

“Iran got much more than it could expect. Much more,” Ulyanov said, implying that he believed Iran was getting the better of America at the negotiation table.

“Our Chinese friends were also very efficient and useful as co-negotiators,” Ulyanov added. “We could rely on each other on many, many points. And on many, many points of joint differences we succeeded.”

Iranian analyst and advisor to Iran’s negotiating team, Mostafa Khoshcheshm, tweeted last week that Russia’s war in Ukraine has forced the U.S. to “retreat” and “give into Iran’s requested terms for a deal,” adding that European countries are already queuing for Iranian oil ahead of a deal. 

Reviving the 2015 agreement that lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for short-term restrictions on its nuclear program has been a chief policy goal of the Biden administration. Critics, however, warn that Iran’s chief objective is to build nuclear weapons. In what could be seen as evidence of this, Khoshchesm told the Tehran Times that, under the terms of the new accord, Iran should be able to quickly resume uranium enrichment to 60% purity. A weapons-grade purity of 90% is needed to produce an atomic bomb. 

One of Iran’s demands is that the U.S. enter a binding agreement not to back out of a new deal, alluding to former President Trump’s withdrawal from the accord in 2018. 

Until now, the request was a non-starter, since it would require approval from two-thirds of the Senate. Republicans and some Democrats say a U.S. president cannot bind a successor to such a guarantee.

Negotiators for Biden, however, appear to have found a workaround to circumvent opposition, proposing that Russia hold Iran’s stockpiles of enriched uranium on condition the U.S. doesn’t back out of the deal, at which point the uranium would be returned to Iran. 

“Iran will keep its advanced centrifuges and nuclear materials inside the country as a form of inherent guarantee to make sure that its nuclear program is fully reversible if the U.S. reneged on its commitments again,” said the Tehran Times.

Russia has played a major role in negotiations, dealing with both sides directly, while the U.S. has been relegated to communicating with Iran through third parties. 

Biden has, on multiple occasions, reneged on his promise not to lift sanctions on Iran until it halts its uranium enrichment, granting sanctions relief that even includes entities who have financed Iranian-backed terrorism. All the while, the regime has continued to enrich its uranium with impunity. 

Gabriel Noronha, who served in the Trump administration as a special adviser for Iran at the State Department, tweeted last week that his former colleagues from the State Department, National Security Council, and European Union are so concerned about the alarming concessions that they shared details with him to publicize in hopes that Congress, who have largely been kept out of the loop, will step in to intervene. 

“Biden’s coming Iran deal will be even worse than Obama’s,” wrote Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who served on the National Security Council and worked as a staffer in Congress for years. “What the U.S. is agreeing to in Vienna is a shorter and weaker agreement that provides even more sanctions relief in exchange for fewer restrictions.”

An announcement of the new accord is expected in the coming days. Iran’s Supreme National Security Council secretary Ali Shamkhani said Monday that an agreement will be forthcoming if the Biden administration capitulates to Iran’s demands to “resolve the remaining issues that are considered as our red lines.”

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