Majlis And Congress At Odds

Rooz Online

A few days after Iranian experts broke of nuclear technical talks in Vienna, the negotiations team has returned to the table and the talks are scheduled to continue. Principlists in Iran however have submitted a draft bill to the country’s parliament, the Majlis, that envisions enriching uranium up to 60 percent purity, while some others have called for even greater enrichment.

At the same time in the US, president Barack Obama has threatened to veto any new sanctions that Congress may pass over Iran.

The new round of technical talks resumed last Thursday and have continued unhindered. The discussions include details on banks and the mechanisms for transferring the agreed money based on the November 24 interim agreement between Iran and the P5+1 major powers. The talks also include the lifting of the restrictions on Iran’s oil revenues, which are said to be in the range of billions of Dollars.

Technical talks between the Iranian and P5+1 teams broke off after the US government announced additions to the blacklist of individuals and companies, as part of its enforcement of existing sanctions. Hamid Baiddinejad, the director general on disarmament at Iran’s foreign ministry leads the technical talks. Speaking to a reporter from Iran’s ISNA student news agency, he announced that the Geneva-3 agreement will result in the drop of restrictions on the sale of 800,000 barrels of oil. “There were differences on the reduction of oil sanctions at Geneva from the beginning, as part of bilateral easing measures. They (and particularly the Americans) argued that they could not be flexible in lifting any aspect of the oil sanctions or free up the oil sales revenues that are currently in the banks of the oil buyers because the sanctions on these were related to Congress and the US administration could not do anything without their approval. We argued that if these issues were not included in the talks then the agreement could not be implemented. Ultimately, upon Iran’s insistence, they agreed to coordinate with US Congress on this and include the issue in the bilateral measures,” he said.

According to the Geneva accord, with the 6-month suspension of some aspects of Iran’s nuclear problem, including enrichment of 20 percent of uranium, the P5+1 countries have agreed to suspend some parts of the sanctions, including those related to enlarging the sanctions on oil and exchange of precious metals. The P5+1 have agreed not to add any new sanctions in these areas for six months.

But despite these, Mohammad-Reza Bahonar, the deputy speaker of Iran’s Majlis, announced a plan to increase enrichment to 60 percent purity, which he said was ready to be put on the assembly’s agenda.

Prior to this, Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s atomic energy agency, had said, after meeting with six grand ayatollahs in the city of Ghom, “Enrichment will continue; We had insisted from the beginning on five percent enrichment and this will continue, even though it is our right to enrich to any level. But we will do this to meet our needs. We need five percent enriched uranium and whenever we have a need for 20 percent enriched uranium we shall undertake that. We have surprised the world and today they know that the Islamic republic will not relinquish its demands because of pressure or threats.”

At the same time, Kazem Sedighi, the influential Friday imam of Tehran also spoke on the subject. “We have the right to enrich uranium and increase its level to the top and view it as a religious duty on ourselves and on the negotiations team to insist on this,” he said.

Across the world news reports indicate that 26 US senators are drafting a plan to add new sanctions against Iran. As that was in progress, a White House spokesman announced that Barack Obama would veto any new sanctions against Iran. At the same time, 10 heads of Senate committees opposed any new sanctions on Iran.

President Barack Obama also publicly spoke about the nuclear talks with Iran and the Geneva accord and expressed his opposition to new sanctions against Iran. “It is not difficult for us to increase pressure on Iran. We can pass new sanctions within a day. Hut this will only add to Iran’s distrust of us,” he said.

Two weeks ago, when the US department of treasury two weeks ago added new names of Iranian individuals and companies to the existing blacklist of sanctioned entities, Iranian government officials protested the move.

Parviz Soroori, a former Majlis member and the deputy of an extremist group in Iran (Jamiate Rahpooyane Enghelab Eslami) had said that the Iranian negotiations team should not return to the talks unless the P5+1 engaged in confidence building. He had also said that Iran should ask for the US to leave the talks so that, in his words, it could direct the Geneva agreement in the right direction.

Mojtaba Zolnoor, a senior Revolutionary Guards advisor to Iran’s supreme leader is another critic of the nuclear talks who recently said, “History shows that any government that trust the US will face negative results. Any government that is optimistic about the West its work is not in the service of people. The suspension of 20 percent uranium enrichment and allowing IAEA inspectors was a preface by Iran to an agreement that would provide for a complete end to the sanctions. Our diplomats must enter the field with full force and make the West understand that any breach that they enact against our people will be responded categorically.”

But officials in Rouhani’s administration have presented a different view. Foreign ministry spokesperson Marzieh Afkham had earlier announced that the addition of new names to the black list did not constitute a breach of the Geneva agreement. She also said that the additional list was also not a negation of what foreign minister Javad Zarif had said on the agreement. Zarif himself had announced that he had talked to US secretary of state John Kerry after the addition of new names to the sanctions list and had said that he preferred that the content of the talks remain “private.” He also said that he had also talked with EU foreign policy chief Ms Ashton.

In a brief statement, Iran’s foreign ministry confirmed the telephone conversation between Zarif and Kerry but stressed that Iran had expressed its dissatisfaction over the addition of new names to the sanctions blacklist. US secretary John Kerry also confirmed the conversation with Zarif and had stressed on moving forward in implementing the Geneva agreement and building confidence. Zarif defended his conversation with Kerry and Ashton by saying both of them had indicated their desire to quickly finalize the Geneva agreement and conclude it with a final arrangement.