One unexpected casualty of
Russia’s war on Ukraine could be the revival of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, or
JCPOA.
After almost a year of
painstaking and sometimes deadlocked negotiations in Vienna between Iran and
the 5+1 group, it finally appeared that a deal was in sight. Even the Russian
envoy to the talks, Mikhail Ulyanov, tweeted on March 3 that negotiations were
“almost over”. Western diplomats concurred that it was a matter of hours before
a deal was struck. But a day later, as Russia was waking up to a series of
unprecedented Western punitive sanctions that amounted to a full blockade,
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow would insist on written
guarantees before backing a new nuclear deal with Iran.
اضافة اعلان
Even the Iranians, who had relied
on Russia’s backing when they rejoined the talks last year, were shocked by the
Kremlin’s about-face. One Iranian official criticized Moscow for linking US
sanctions against Russia to Moscow's approval of any revised nuclear deal with
Tehran, according to news media.
A diplomatically besieged Kremlin
was now playing any card it could get its hands on, even if it meant the
collapse of the Vienna talks.
Officially, Tehran blamed the US
for the sudden “pause” in negotiations and urged Washington to reconsider its
position. Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said this week that
reports by Western media that the talks are mostly held up by Russia’s demand
are part of the US strategy.
“Downgrading what is happening in
Vienna to one element – meaning Russia’s demand – is what the US wants so
everyone would forget its own responsibilities. No one must forget that the
party responsible for the fact that we are still at the point of non-agreement
is the US,” he was quoted as saying.
But instead of putting pressure
on America’s European allies, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian
headed to Moscow on Tuesday for talks with his Russian counterpart. This
underlines how much Tehran sees Moscow as having the last say on what now seems
like a troubled deal.
What Moscow wants are guarantees
from Washington that would ensure “that the current [sanctions] process
launched by the US will not in any way harm our right to free, fully fledged
trade and economic and investment cooperation and military-technical
cooperation with Iran,” Lavrov had said on March 4.
Tehran wants an end to sanctions while Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who has offered to mediate between Moscow and Kyiv, may score some points with Putin that could turn the pause in the Vienna talks into an open-ended impasse.
The so-called pause is good news
for a number of parties which have resisted the revival of the Iran nuclear
deal over a number of issues, including Tehran’s regional behavior. That
matters not only to Israel, but also to GCC countries and others who see Iran’s
proxies wreaking havoc in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
But that may not be the case for
the Biden administration and its European partners. The war in Ukraine and the
punitive measures taken against Moscow have changed the agenda and made
reaching a deal with Iran even more urgent.
The West’s dependency on Russian
oil and gas has cushioned the full effect of the sanctions. While the US has
banned Russian oil and gas imports, the EU has not, leading to steep spikes in
energy prices worldwide.
Suddenly, Washington felt that it
had to lift sanctions on Venezuelan and Iranian oil exports in order to rein in
the energy markets and speed up the process of finding other suppliers for its
European partners. Moscow knows Washington’s motives and understands the danger
it faces if the EU stops, even after many months, importing Russian oil and
gas.
For now, the Iran deal has become
hostage to an inconclusive war that Russian President Vladimir Putin launched
and whose devastating global effects are spreading every minute.
Closer to home, Iran chose to
send its own message to the US and Israel by launching 12 ballistic missiles
against a target, or targets, in Iraq’s northern city of Erbil earlier this
week. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed responsibility and said it had
hit Israeli "strategic centers". The US consulate in Erbil was not
targeted. This was a rare occasion when Iran, and not its proxies, fired at Western
targets in Iraq.
While Israel and the Kurdistan
government denied Iranian claims, the incident showed how complex and
interconnected the regional situation had become. Israel has been striking Iran-related positions in Syria for years.
Whether Moscow’s new position on
the Vienna talks will derail a deal or only delay it is not known. The Biden
administration is running out of time, and Moscow is now playing a geopolitical
chess game.
Tehran wants an end to sanctions
while Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who has offered to mediate
between Moscow and Kyiv, may score some points with Putin that could turn the
pause in the Vienna talks into an open-ended impasse.
What is now clear is that the
nuclear deal has become a pawn in Russia’s war chest.
The writer is a journalist and
political commentator based in Amman.
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