The Unspoken Issues of the Vienna Talks

Rooz Online

In simple words, the Vienna talks between Iran and the P5+1 powers to reach a final agreement on Iran’s nuclear dossier practically failed and the parties failed to find a solution to their deep differences of view over Iran’s future nuclear activities. The extension of the talks for another four months is a means so each side or both seriously compromise on their current position as a way to create the grounds for a possible resolution.

Returning from Vienna, US Secretary of State John Kerry announced during a press conference that serious gaps remained between the views of the two sides and that each must seriously work on it. Judging by his subsequent statements and those of other American observers one realizes that if the differences between Iran and the US are resolvable, they require that a very serious change in the foreign policy and national security perspectives of both parties, something that appears unlikely to happen in the upcoming four months.

In fact, the six-month Geneva talks faced a similar issue when the two sides resorted to a diplomatic formula of putting their deep differences between so called parenthesis to buy more time to ultimately reach an agreement. The two most important issues that were pushed into parenthesis because of the almost unmovable views of each side were uranium enrichment and the lifting of the sanctions. According to diplomatic experience, in sensitive talks where neither side reduces its demands while at the same time does not desire the talks to fail, the parties agree on the general issues and by putting their most important differences in parenthesis for future consultations prevent the actual failure of the talks. And this is how the final Geneva agreement was reached.

Deadlock in Vienna

The remarks by Iran’s leader just a day before the final round of the Vienna talks about Iran’s needs to have 190,000 centrifuges in the future creating the practical deadlock for the talks while the P5+1 powers refrained to show flexibility in their views on their four preconditions which included accepting Iran’s right to enrichment, the lifting of the sanctions, Iran’s missile program and the exclusion of inspections on nuclear research activities.

Many believe that one cannot expect a miracle to happen in the next four months and there is a great chance that no agreement will be reached by November. A specialist at a strategic think tank even told the New York Times that the US Congress and the Senate have no plan to reach a compromise with Iran and that their plan is not to have an agreement with Iran. He stressed that Congress will have a problem with any agreement that is reached by the executive branch because the anti-agreement lobbies believe that keeping the pressure on Iran is the most ideal condition.

A similar situation exists in Iran. As the extreme right groups in Iran that oppose an agreement with the P5+1 are busy organizing themselves and are even drawing implicit warnings for the supreme leader of the Islamic regime, there is a significant possibility that this may engage the authorities of the supreme leader. So as time goes on, the Iranian side too engulfs in crisis regarding any compromise and dropping some of its demands vis-à-vis Western demands which does not seem to want to give Iran any concessions.

During the next round of talks, the differences cannot be put or kept in the parenthesis and the possibility of further extending the talks beyond the four months is very small. With this trajectory, it becomes very difficult to see the direction things may take and the threats by Israel which has been against any agreement right from the start, will most likely resume.