Iranian FM Javad Zarif smiles during a bilateral meeting U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sept. 21, 2014 in New York. Photo courtesy of ISNA

By Jasmin Ramsey
WASHINGTON, Sep 22 2014 (IPS)

Iran’s foreign minister arrived in New York last week with his sights set on a final deal on Iran’s nuclear programme. But a pressing regional conflict is hanging heavily over the already strained negotiations as Iran and world powers resume talks on the sidelines of this week’s U.N. General Assembly.

A Sep. 21 report by Reuters that Iran was seeking a “give and take” strategy in the talks by using the support it could provide in battling the Islamic State (ISIL or ISIS) as leverage challenged prior U.S. and Iranian insistence that the talks are solely nuclear-focused.

But a senior Iranian official involved in the negotiations told IPS that Iran was not discussing Iraq during talks with the P5+1 (U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China plus Germany).“People in Iran can survive with suspension, but they can’t survive with dismantlement.” -- Nuclear security expert Arianne Tabatabai

“We have enough on our plate with the nuclear issue,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity via a Sep. 21 email.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius supported the Iranian official’s comment to IPS during a televised conference held in New York today by the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR).

“The Iranians did not ask us to have a melange [bring ISIS into the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme]…these were different questions,” he said.

Mixed Signals

Whether or not the crisis posed by ISIS has become an issue in the nuclear negotiations, Iran appears to be exploring various avenues to combat the Sunni extremist group’s advance through parts of Syria and Iraq.

Although Iran and Saudi Arabia have traditionally maintained cold relations—the Shia and Sunni countries both seek regional dominance—the threat posed by ISIS could bring them closer together.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif called a Sep. 21 hour-long meeting with his Saudi counterpart in New York a “new chapter in relations,” according to the state news agency, IRNA.

“We can reach agreement on ways for countering this very sensitive crisis,” he said.

But Iranian and U.S. officials have publicly oscillated over the extent to which Iran could work with other powers in battling ISIS.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei strongly denied a Sep. 5 BBC Persian report that he had approved military cooperation with the U.S. in the fight against ISIS in Iraq.

For its part, the United States excluded Iran from an U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition meeting in Paris.

Four days later, Secretary of State John Kerry said Iran had a “role” to play in “decimating and discrediting” the group at a U.N. Security Council meeting on Iraq.

All the while, Iranian officials have discussed ISIS with their U.S. counterparts on the sidelines of the nuclear talks—though both deny military coordination—and provided material and logistical support to some of the same parties battling ISIS in Iraq.

While Zarif ridiculed the U.S.-led group during a Sep. 17 CFR conference as a “coalition of repenters” for allegedly aiding and abetting ISIS’s rise, he also said Iran would continue supporting the Iraqi government’s fight against ISIS.

“We don’t hesitate in providing support to our friends, to deal with this menace,” he said.

“The U.S. is not desperate for Iran’s help” and cooperating with Tehran could “complicate the nuclear negotiations and be a political headache for the Obama administration,” Alireza Nader, a senior analyst at the RAND Corporation’s U.S. headquarters, told IPS.

“While some level of tacit U.S.-Iran understanding in Iraq cannot be entirely ruled out, the Iranian government should not over-estimate its leverage on the nuclear issue,” said Nader.

Dismantlement vs. Suspension

While both sides have said a final deal by the Nov. 24 deadline for the negotiations is possible, the talks appear stymied by certain sticking points, especially the future of Iran’s uranium enrichment programme.

Iran wants to maintain enough centrifuges and other nuclear infrastructure to be self-reliant and reach an industrial scale by 2021, but the U.S. wants Iran to scale back its current programme.

“The status quo is not doable for any of us,” said a senior U.S. official during on the condition of anonymity Sep. 18.

But Zarif argued last week that instead of achieving policy goals, U.S.-led sanctions on Iran have resulted in a “net outcome” of more Iranian centrifuges.

“If at the time of the imposition of sanctions, we had less than a couple of hundred centrifuges, now we have about 20,000,” said Zarif on Sep. 17.

While the U.S. has agreed to some enrichment in Iran, the Israeli government has been pushing for complete dismantlement, which Iran says is impossible.

Iran has invested too much in its nuclear programme to dismantle it, according to nuclear security expert Arianne Tabatabai.

“Iran will have to give up certain things to reach a deal, and already has under [last year’s interim deal the Joint Plan of Action], but when you start talking about dismantlement, people react,” she said. “It’s a bit of a red line.”

Until now, the negotiating parties have been surprisingly tight-lipped about the details of their talks, which helped stave off domestic criticism. But that trend appears to have been broken.

A “face-saving” proposal reported Sep. 19 by the New York Times would allow Iran to suspend rather than dismantle its centrifugal operations, but has been publicly opposed by U.S. and Iranian politicians not involved in the talks.

A group of 31 Republican senators warned against the U.S. “offering troubling nuclear concessions to Iran” to rapidly reach a deal in a Sep. 19 letter to Secretary of State John Kerry.

Back in Tehran several members of the Iranian parliament rejected the proposal, according to a report Monday in the hard-line Fars News Agency.

“If such a proposal is formally presented by American officials, it indicates their childish outlook on the negotiations or stupid assumptions of the Iranian side,” said Hossein Sheikholeslam, a deputy to the speaker of parliament.

A group of conservative MPs also held a conference today in Tehran against U.S.-Iran rapproachment. The participants said a potential meeting between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and U.S. President Barack Obama in New York would be an “inappropriate act.”

Rouhani met with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who wished Rouhani success in his diplomatic initiatives, before the president departed for New York last night.

Rouhani will address the U.N. General Assembly on Sep. 25.

Tabatabai told IPS that while Iran may not be desperate for a deal, both sides want a final agreement and reports of creative solutions to the standoff demonstrate “the political will is there.”

“People in Iran can survive with suspension, but they can’t survive with dismantlement,” she said.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif is slotted to meet with his British counterpart William Hague at the U.N. General Assembly later this month. Credit: UN Photo/Kate Schafer

By Jasmin Ramsey
WASHINGTON, Sep 17 2013 (IPS)

In the wake of a renewed diplomatic push on the Iranian nuclear front, shared interests in Iran’s backyard could pave the way for Washington and Tehran to work toward overcoming decades of hostility.

“I think that if Iran and the United States are able to overcome their differences regarding Iran’s nuclear programme, if there begins to be some progress in that regard, then I do see opportunities for dialogue and cooperation on a broader range of issues, including my issues, which is to say Afghanistan,” Ambassador James F. Dobbins, the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, told IPS at a press briefing here Monday.

This summer’s election of Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, a moderate cleric with centrist and reformist backing as well as close ties to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has been followed by signals that Iran may be positioning itself to agree to a deal over its controversial nuclear programme.

Rouhani’s appointment of Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to oversee Iran’s nuclear dossier has been received positively here by leading foreign policy elites who consider Zarif a worthy negotiating partner.

The Western-educated former Iranian ambassador to the United Nations is slotted to meet with his British counterpart William Hague at the U.N. General Assembly later this month, which could lead to a resumption of diplomatic ties that were halted following a 2011 storming of the British embassy in Tehran by a group of protestors.

Dobbins, who worked closely with Zarif in 2001 after being appointed by the George W. Bush administration to aid the establishment of a post-Taliban government in Afghanistan, told IPS that “Iran was quite helpful” with the task.

“I think it’s unfortunate that our cooperation, which was, I think, genuine and important back in 2001, wasn’t able to be sustained,” added Dobbins.

The U.S. halted official moves toward further cooperation with Iran following a 2002 speech by Bush that categorised Iran as part of an “axis of evil” with Iraq and North Korea.

While President Barack Obama’s “A New Beginning” speech in Cairo in 2009 indicated a move away from Bush-era rhetoric on the Middle East, the U.S.’s Iran policy has remained sanctions-centric – a main point of contention for Iran during last year’s nuclear talks.

Positive signs from both sides

But a recent string of events, which continued even as the U.S. seemed to be positioning itself to strike Iranian ally Syria, have led to speculation that the long-time adversaries may be edging toward direct talks, though the White House denied speculation that this could take place at the U.N. General Assembly.

President Obama confirmed Sunday reports of a letter exchange with Rouhani.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham also verified the exchange but denied speculation that Syria was a subject.

“Obama’s letter was received, but it was not about Syria and it was a congratulation letter (to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani) whose response was sent,” Afkham told reporters in Tehran in comments posted on the semiofficial Fars News Agency.

That both leaders have publicly acknowledged such rare contact is an important development in and of itself, according to Robert E. Hunter, who served on the National Security Council staff throughout the Jimmy Carter administration.

“This is an effort as much as anything to test the waters in domestic American politics regarding direct talks, regarding the possibility of seeing whether something more productive can be done than in the past. And except out of Israel, I haven’t seen a lot of powerful protest,” Hunter told IPS.

“The Iranians have already backed off on the stuff about the Holocaust by saying it was that ‘other guy’. Now, and this is a reach, but keep in mind that as the slogan goes, the road between Tehran and Washington runs through Jerusalem,” said Hunter, who was U.S. ambassador to NATO (1993-98).

“A serious improvement of U.S.-Iran relations also requires Iran to do things in regard to Israel that will reduce Israel’s anxiety about Iranian intentions on the nuclear front, and on Hezbollah,” he said.

Hunter added that “compatible interests” between the two countries, including security and stability in Iraq and Afghanistan and freedom of shipping in the vital oil transport route, the Strait of Hormuz, could also pave the way to improved relations.

A shift in Iran

Khamenei, who has always been deeply suspicious of U.S. policy toward Iran, has given permission for Rouhani to enter into direct talks with the U.S., according to an op-ed published by Project Syndicate and written by former Iranian nuclear negotiator, Hossein Mousavian.

During a meeting Monday with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Khamenei also said he was “not opposed to correct diplomacy” and believes in “heroic flexibility”, according to an Al-Monitor translation.

Adding to the eyebrow-raising remarks was Khamenei’s echoing of earlier comments by Rouhani that the IRGC does not need to have a direct hand in politics.

“It is not necessary for it to act as a guard in the political scene, but it should know the political scene,” said Khamenei, who has nurtured years of close relations with the powerful branch of Iran’s military.

Iran sends out feelers

On Sept. 12, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation Ali Akbar Salehi announced that Iran had reduced its stockpile of 20 percent low enriched uranium by converting it into fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR).

This was described as “misleading” by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) based on how little LEU Iran had reportedly converted to fuel.

“As such, this action cannot be seen as a significant confidence building measure,” argued ISIS in a press release.

But Paul Pillar, a former top CIA analyst who served as the National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia (2000 to 2005), called this “an example of all-too-prevalent reductionism that seeks to fold political and psychological questions into technical ones.”

“Confidence-building measures can mean many things, but in general they have at least as much to do with perceptions and intentions as they do with gauging physical steps against some technical yardstick,” Pillar told IPS.

“Confidence-building measures…are gestures of goodwill and intent. They are not walls against a possible future ‘break-out’. If they were, they would not be confidence-building measures; they would be a solving of the whole problem,” he said.