The agreement was almost ready to be signed.

After eleven months of fierce negotiations in Vienna between Iran and the major powers - China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and indirectly with the United States - all that remained was to finalize the "notes of bottom of the page", had indicated several European diplomats.

But that was without counting on the war in Ukraine.

The conflict erupted in the talks intended to revive the 2015 Iranian nuclear agreement, sweeping away for some time any hope of concluding a new text. 

"We have to take a break in the talks due to external factors", announced on Friday March 11, Josep Borrell, head of diplomacy of the European Union (EU) responsible for coordinating the process.

"A final text is almost ready and on the table," he said. 

At the heart of this diplomatic reversal: Russia, hit by Western sanctions after its invasion of Ukraine, took diplomats by surprise by imposing additional conditions on the conclusion of a new agreement.

To everyone's surprise, Moscow demanded, at the beginning of March, that the sanctions adopted against it do not affect its economic cooperation with Iran.

Claims deemed "off topic" by the head of American diplomacy, Antony Blinken, and which stopped the discussions dead. 

In Tehran, Russian demands sparked debate in the press.

Reform newspapers strongly criticized Russia, accused of preventing the conclusion of the agreement.

Cautious, the conservative press, for its part, accused Washington of being responsible for the blockage, without explicitly defending the Russian position. 

The Iranian reformist press headlines: "How did the Vienna negotiations come to this?"

#روزنامه_شرق


یکشنبه ۲۲ اسفند ١۴٠٠ pic.twitter.com/szK53QOJ4n

— شرق (@SharghDaily) March 13, 2022

For Westerners - including France, which recently deemed it very urgent to sign a text preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons - the question is therefore whether the parties involved can do without of Russia to discuss with Tehran. 

>> To read: What does Iran lack to acquire nuclear weapons?

The Russians, essential intermediaries in negotiations

For Clément Therme, specialist in Russian-Iranian relations and lecturer at Paul-Valéry University in Montpellier, the answer will be no "as long as the Islamic Republic of Iran refuses to speak directly with the Americans, which increases its dependence vis-à-vis China and Russia.

Since the resumption of negotiations with Tehran in April 2021, the team of diplomats from Russia, an ally of Iran, has played a key role.

She commutes between hotels in Vienna, where the Iranian delegation is staying, and that of the United States, because the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, has forbidden his negotiators from sitting at the same table as the Americans.

"Anti-Americanism is in the DNA of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Ideologically, Tehran cannot afford to negotiate directly with Washington," said the researcher.

The Iranian position therefore places Russia as an essential intermediary in the nuclear dossier.  

Another key role played by the Russians: in the event of an agreement, Moscow was supposed to receive and store the tons of enriched uranium which Tehran must get rid of.

However, solutions are being studied to convince the Iranians to entrust their surplus uranium to other states in the party.  

Russia, an indispensable ally for the security of Tehran 

While an Iranian official has said that Russia's new demands in the Vienna negotiations were "not constructive" - ​​according to Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency - no official statement has dissension between Tehran and the Kremlin.

Although Russia sabotaged the nuclear talks, Moscow remains an ally.   

"The Islamic Republic cannot go against Russia's interests, because Russia is helping the Iranian regime survive by providing it with security equipment, such as that used to suppress the 2009 protests [against re-election challenged by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Editor's note], surveillance software and sensitive technologies (Iranian missiles of Russian inspiration, construction of a civilian nuclear power plant)", list Clément Therme, who devoted an article to the subject.

"Iran needs Russia more than Russia needs Iran," said the researcher. 

The price of oil at stake 

For many experts, the Iranian nuclear negotiations are instrumentalized by Moscow.

"Russia's game may be to obtain a delay for the reactivation of the agreement in order to avoid an influx of Iranian oil on the market", which would lower prices, explains Clément Therme. 

"By keeping the barrel at a high price, the Kremlin can use the energy weapon against the West", underlines the expert.

And increase its own oil-related income.

A success of the nuclear agreement would, in effect, lift the sanctions on Iranian oil and add 1.3 to 1.5 million barrels per day to the world market.

The quantities could be insufficient to compensate for European and American energy dependence on Russia, but this is one solution among others. 

With AFP

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