Page 9 - MEOG Week 31 2021

MEOG POLICY MEOG

Khamenei unhappy about lack

of guarantee on nuclear deal

IRAN IRAN’S supreme leader on July 28 raised con- The sixth round of indirect talks between
cerns that Washington has given no guarantee Tehran and Washington on reviving the JCPOA
that should Tehran agree to a revival of the 2015 adjourned on June 20, two days after hardline
nuclear deal, the US will not at some point aban- cleric Ebrahim Raisi was elected president of the
don the pact again. Islamic Republic.
The issue is a challenging one given that it is There is as yet no word on when the next
not feasible that the current Biden administra- round of negotiations will resume.
tion in the US could erect an immovable barrier Like Khamenei, Raisi has backed the rein-
to a successor administration pulling the US out statement of the nuclear pact but officials have
of the nuclear deal, or JCPOA, a second time. said that his government might switch Iran’s
Tehran is still raw over how Biden’s prede- stance in the talks to “a hardline” approach.
cessor, Donald Trump, broke international Under the JCPOA, Iran agreed to restrict its
convention by in May 2018, at a time when UN nuclear development programme to ensure it
inspectors said Iran was in full compliance with remains purely civilian in return for the removal
the JCPOA, unilaterally ending American par- of heavy sanctions.
ticipation in the multilateral accord painstak- Khamenei also referred to a sentence that he
ingly negotiated by Iran and six major powers. said “stubborn” Washington insists on adding
To Iranian hardline politicians, who from to the nuclear deal text. “By adding this sen-
next week will have control of the presidency tence, they want to provide an excuse for their
as well as the parliament, the move simply con- further interventions on the nuclear deal and
firmed their contention that the US is never to [Iran’s] [ballistic] missile work and regional
be trusted. issues,” Khamenei said. “Then if we refuse to dis-
“The Americans acted completely cowardly cuss those issues, Americans will accuse Iran of
and maliciously,” state TV quoted the supreme violating the nuclear deal and they will say the
leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as saying. “They agreement is over.”
once violated the nuclear deal at no cost by exit- On July 29, US Secretary of State Antony
ing it. Now they explicitly say that they cannot Blinken said that the nuclear talks with Iran
give guarantees that it would not happen again.” “cannot go on indefinitely” but that Washington
He added that “experience has shown that was “fully prepared” to continue negotiations.
trusting the West does not work”. “We’re committed to diplomacy, but this
A US State Department spokesperson process cannot go on indefinitely ... we look to
responded in a statement that the Biden admin- see what Iran is ready to do or not ready to do
istration “has been sincere and steadfast in and remain fully prepared to return to Vienna to
pursuing a path of meaningful diplomacy to continue negotiations,” AFP reported Blinken as
achieve a mutual return to compliance [with the saying during a visit to Kuwait, adding: “The ball
agreement].” remains in Iran’s court.”™

Week 31 04•August•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P9