The Lead: US official says Iran nuclear deal ‘within reach’
Back on track: On March 15, the talks to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or Iran nuclear deal, appeared back on track, 10 days after Russia appeared to knock them off course.
- State Department spokesman Ned Price said on March 15 that “we are not going to sanction Russia for participating in nuclear projects that are part of the” nuclear deal.
- Both Tehran and Washington, in their own ways, made clear to Moscow that the JCPOA will go ahead with or without Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin decided that it’s better to be engaged than "irrelevant," as Dmitri Simes anticipated in our podcast last week.
- A senior US official told The Wall Street Journal on March 15 that there are only “a handful of issues left,” including scope of sanctions relief, and that a deal was “within reach.”
- "The ball is in America’s court," said Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on March 15, after meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Tehran. "And if Washington responds to the few remaining important issues and refrains from killing the time any further, the parties can return to Vienna as soon as possible to conclude the talks."
- On March 16, Iran released Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anousheh Ashouri, British nationals who had been imprisoned for spying. There are hopes and expectations that if there is a deal, Iran will release other Western nationals held in Iran, including four American citizens.
Lingering issues: The signals from Washington and Tehran are encouraging, if guarded, that a deal is imminent, as was expected before Lavrov’s wringer on March 5. But some issues, including the US designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), remain.
- "Now that Russia has withdrawn its demands for a wider exemption from economic penalties over its invasion, Iran will likely continue to insist on more sanctions relief of its own," writes Mark Fitzpatrick. "It wants all Trump-era sanctions lifted, including those properly adopted for reasons of missile activity, human rights violations and support for terrorism. Iran has a debating point, because many of the blacklist designations were applied with the openly broadcast ulterior motive of preventing a future president from rejoining the nuclear deal. But many of the sanctions were legitimate and have no connection to the nuclear deal."
- "Iran is likely still waiting for the United States to capitulate to its demand that the IRGC be removed from the list of foreign terrorist organizations, notwithstanding recent reports that the IRGC's Quds Force is targeting former top officials of the Trump administration for assassination on US territory, and notwithstanding the recent missile attack on Erbil in northern Iraq," says former US Assistant Secretary of State Stephen Rademaker. "We may also see additional last-minute Iranian efforts to renegotiate key aspects of the deal, such as their recent demand that the agreed sequence of steps for returning to the JCPOA be reconfigured to their advantage."
- Barak Ravid reports today that the Biden administration may be considering lifting or parking the IRGC’s FTO designation in return for commitments to de-escalate regional tensions.
Energy drives talks: The global crisis that drove oil’s price above $100 per barrel and natural gas prices to new highs in Europe may be giving some urgency to the Vienna talks. As we wrote last week, if there is an agreement in Vienna, Iran — in dire need of revenues and energy investment — would be open for business at a time the West is seeking to mitigate disruptions caused by the Ukraine conflict and sanctions on Russia.
Neighborhood watch: Meanwhile, the region is on edge over the impact of a nuclear agreement on Iranian behavior. In Iraq, the IRGC missile attack on Erbil on March 13 has sparked renewed concerns about malign Iranian influence as talks over government formation are ongoing for five months and counting, as Shelly Kittleson reports. And Israel and the UAE may be coordinating their appeals to Washington for increased security assistance, as Rina Bassist reports.
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