US return to JCPOA requires unconditional renewal of all obligations: Lavrov
…from PressTV, Tehran
[ Editor’s Note: I had been wondering when Russia was going to weigh in on the JCPOA talks, and was surprised to see it pick a slow news big holiday weekend in the US. Or was that done on purpose, and not a goof?
Left out of their announcement are two critical things that after the years of haggling over this issue, five plus years of getting the initial agreement, and then the six now past, that is a decade of endless turmoil.
The original deal only has four more years left when ‘renegotiations’ would have to take place anyway. As the initial JCPOA took five years to pull together, and then the US broke it, a renewal agreement would be hard to conclude with a US with a poor track record.
But the big surprise, a bet that I would have lost money on, is why has Iran not pushed in the negotiations that it could be more flexible if Israel’s nuclear program was put under UN control as part of denuclearizing the region.
And by denuclearizing that would include the nukes that the Saudis have squirreled away, that everyone pretends to know nothing about. Without exposing all of the offenders who are proliferators, there is no increased security benefit to the world at large.
But what we have, is certain powerful entities wanting certain countries to have nukes. Mass media has avoided truthfully dealing with this issue, which should surprise no one.
This is the media that rolled over on a Pentagon lawn completely clear of plane wreckage, but published photos of small pieces of plane metal debris the next morning, and amateur con, as they forget to seed it with the usual luggage strewn over, no seat cushions, laptops, clothers, life vests, or food service trays, cups, etc.
Every crash investigator knew it was a hoax by the end of the second day. It was a professional society betrayal off the scale, to say nothing of the pitiful military stand down, and worst of all the FBI, who actually went out and grabbed all the rooftop camera footage of the magical plane and never released.
Only unfunded VT has published any of this, and not one security official with a reputation to lose has ever dared debate us on it, nor have we ever been called to testify in a Congressional hearing.
This is who we have protecting us, which is one hell of a scary situation, made worst by how much we spend for ‘security’. Thus ends my rant for the day … Jim W. Dean ]
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First published … July 02 ,2021
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has commended “significant progress” made in the Vienna talks aimed at reviving the Iranian nuclear deal, urging the United States to completely and unconditionally renew all its obligations to return to the agreement.
“The progress is significant, and many things were agreed upon, but not everything,” Lavrov said at a press conference after negotiations with Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani in Moscow on Friday.
The US, under former President Donald Trump, left the nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in 2018 and initiated a “maximum pressure” campaign of tough economic sanctions against Iran, prompting Tehran to take remedial measures by gradually reducing its nuclear commitments under the deal.
Since April, representatives from Iran and the remaining signatories to the JCPOA — France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China — have been holding face-to-face talks in the Austrian capital aimed at bringing the US back to compliance and putting the deal back on track.
Trump’s withdrawal was criticized by candidate Joe Biden, who defeated him in the November presidential election. Biden had promised to rejoin the JCPOA but the US is yet to take a concrete, verifiable step to that goal.
The talks have, however, dragged on, signaling that the US is still refusing to meet Tehran’s key conditions for it to return to the JCPOA.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Lavrov pointed to the main obstacles hindering the JCPOA revitalization and said, “If the United States unilaterally withdrew from the agreement and thereby violated the UN Security Council Resolution [2231] in a gross manner, then, probably, the US return to the JCPOA presupposes a complete and unconditional renewal of all obligations.”
He slammed efforts by the West to retroactively change the multilateral nuclear deal, saying, “Our Western partners are trying in every possible way to use this situation in order to retroactively change the JCPOA and impose new obligations on Iran.”
The Russian foreign minister emphasized that full restoration of what was signed and approved unanimously by the Security Council would be a “very honest approach.”
Speaking to reporters after a United Nations Security Council meeting on Wednesday, Iran’s Ambassador to the United Nations Majid Takht-Ravanchi said a guarantee by the United States that it will never unilaterally withdraw from the JCPOA again is crucial to a successful conclusion of the ongoing talks in Vienna.
He reiterated that the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal was illegal and against international regulations, adding, “The US left the JCPOA illegally, irrationally and without any reason.”
Russia expects JCPOA to be back in effect before July 14
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a briefing on Thursday that Moscow expects that the Vienna talks will be successfully completed by July 14 — the sixth anniversary of the JCPOA conclusion.
She praised sizable progress made on the nuclear deal revival by the negotiating sides during the Vienna talks, saying, “Over these three months, the delegations have managed to achieve substantial progress in coordinating the parameters and modalities of the process to restore the JCPOA.”
Zakharova added, “They also managed to determine the response and the sequence of the moves that the US and Iran are to make, as well as to analyze how the corresponding commitments will be formalized and their checks ensured.”
She also stressed the importance of reviewing Washington’s restrictions against Tehran and continuing the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) inspection of Iran’s nuclear activities.
The Russian spokesperson said it is a priority to “restore as soon as possible the verifying activity of the IAEA in Iran to the degree envisaged by the Joint [Comprehensive] Plan of Action.”
She warned that such agreements have no sensible alternative “and without them security measures are getting more vulnerable.” The diplomat further denounced the United States for failing to take any practical measure to solve the dispute on Iran’s nuclear case.
No practical moves are seen from the US for now of abandoning its policy of pressuring Iran, Zakharova said.
The sixth round of the Vienna talks between Iran and the P4+1 group of countries concluded on June 20 as the negotiators returned to their capitals for further consultations. This is the longest break the diplomats have taken since the beginning of the negotiations.
Throughout the Vienna talks, Iran has insisted that the United States, as the first party that abandoned its contractual undertakings, should be the first party to return to its commitments by removing its sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Tehran has also sought assurances that the next US administration will not violate the deal again.
In a tweet on Thursday, Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s permanent representative to the international organizations in Vienna, said the participating states in the Vienna talks still need more time for what is supposed to be the final round of negotiations.
Jim W. Dean is VT Editor Emeritus. He was an active editor on VT from 2010-2022. He was involved in operations, development, and writing, plus an active schedule of TV and radio interviews. He now writes and posts periodically for VT.
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Stopped right here: Jim.
“””why has Iran not pushed in the negotiations that it could be more flexible if Israel’s nuclear program was put under UN control”””
Has Iran EVER said “anything” about Israeli nukes?
It doesn’t ring a bell with me, but your observation screams out an obvious negotiating point for Iran.
If they were, or are, really serious about their own security, then every time any Irainian public figure makes a statement on ANYTHING, in any international forum, they should always include the issue of Israeli nuclear weapons!
The fact that they don’t, raises the question; just how serious is Iran about their own security?
Something smells about the whole affair.
A guarantee by the United States that it will never unilaterally withdraw…. it’s not real and an impossible dream.
Yes, That is certainly a reality, but so is Iran’s going nuclear, simply on the grounds that Israel has them and is threatening Iran all the time, and the Western JCPOA countries have always been just fine with that. But the catch is that under the UN charter, countries have a right to retaliate, and you cannot retaliate for a nuclear attack unless you have some nukes, and the ability to deploy them. And VT would be happy to brief Congress in a heart beat on the history of mini-nuke use. That would be fun.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) will never be made permanent because there is no way ReTrumplicans in Congress will ever ratify it as a treaty. That was the deal Trump made with the Likudniks and Christian Zionists he had surrounded himself with when he killed it in the first place, then imposed onerous sanctions, then murdered General Soleimani, then did everything he could to provoke Iran into retaliating which they had the good sense to not do. The whole world is smiling and shaking their heads at Biden now trying vainly to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
It’s amazing how you put the emphasis on Congress ratifying JCPOA! The best deals are done without the Congress.. ask the Zionists!
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