Leaked details of conversations with Iran reveal the Biden administration is willing to make compromises to resurrect the failed nuclear agreement, even while Iranian-inspired murder plots, including an assault on Salman Rushdie, develop on US territory.
Following days of indirect discussions between the US and Iran in Vienna, EU officials put out a ‘final’ plan to resuscitate the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement that Trump withdrew out of four years ago.
Politico claimed Friday evening that a leaked copy of the agreement would weaken American sanctions on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and allow Tehran to escape further scrutiny of its alleged atomic facilities.
Though it’s formally an EU initiative, European officials spoke extensively with the US delegation and think they have Washington’s approval.
The plan appeared to reflect President Biden’s readiness to make considerable compromises, especially with the Revolutionary Guard, a foreign terrorist group.
Iran has reacted positively to the pact, although it comes amid assassination plots inspired by Tehran.
An Iranian sympathiser attacked Salman Rushdie in New York on Friday, and a Revolutionary Guard member was accused with conspiring to kill former US officials this week.
Biden assumed office two years ago hoping to resurrect the moribund nuclear accord, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Trump departed office without negotiating a better accord after withdrawing from the pact in 2018.
After Politico reported on the new EU plan, Biden’s Iran envoy Robert Malley denied the US would adjust its sanctions guidelines.
‘We have not negotiated due diligence, know-your-customer, or other U.S. sanctions compliance rules for sanctions that would persist under a mutual restoration to full JCPOA implementation,’ he wrote.
Malley said any contrary story is false.
Politico stated that the EU plan would enable non-Americans to do deal with Iranian businesses involved in ‘transactions’ with the Revolutionary Guard without fear of US penalties.
Current US sanctions penalise and isolate the Revolutionary Guard for such dealings.
EU proposal: ‘Non-U.S. persons doing business with Iranian persons not on the [U.S. sanctions list] will not be subject to sanctions simply because those Iranian persons engaged in separate transactions involving Iranian persons on the [U.S. sanctions list] (including Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), its officials, or its subsidiaries or affiliates).
IRNA reported Friday that a senior Iranian official suggested the EU accord may be acceptable provided it met Tehran’s core objectives.
Unidentified Iranian ambassador told IRNA that Tehran is examining the idea.
The ambassador said EU proposals might be acceptable provided they include safeguards, penalties, and assurances.
The Islamic Republic wants assurances that no future US president would renege on the accord, as Trump did in 2018.
Biden can’t provide such promises since the accord is a political understanding, not a formal treaty.
According to Iranian state TV, a leading Shi’ite Muslim cleric said Tehran wanted verifiable assurances that US sanctions will be eased under a resurrected pact.
Kazem Seddiqi stated during Friday prayers in Tehran that if sanctions are withdrawn owing to the people’s’resistance and strength,’ state TV reported.
Washington says it’s willing to achieve a deal swiftly based on EU ideas.
Iranian authorities said they’d relay ‘new viewpoints and concerns’ to the EU following Tehran meetings.
A senior EU official claimed the 15-month-old document was final. He expects a final decision in’very, very few weeks’
The 2015 pact seemed revived in March.
In exchange for respite from U.S., EU, and U.N. sanctions, Iran stopped its controversial uranium enrichment programme in 2015.
11 months of informal discussions between Tehran and the Biden administration in Vienna collapsed over Iran’s demand to remove its elite Revolutionary Guards Corps off the U.S. Foreign Terrorist Organizations list.
The US accused a Revolutionary Guards member with trying to kill Trump national security advisor John Bolton on Wednesday, but Washington maintained the allegations shouldn’t disrupt nuclear negotiations with Tehran.
Prosecutors said Shahram Poursafi offered $300,000 to unnamed ‘criminal entities’ in the U.S.
The government stated the purported scheme was likely in retribution for the US assassination of Guards commander Qassem Soleimani in Iraq in January 2020.
The DOJ stated Poursafi was allegedly willing to pay $1 million for a second ‘job,’ but did not name the target.
Morgan Ortagus, State Department spokesman under Trump, said Mike Pompeo was the second target.