Live ammunition, targeting of students, arrests of journalists… The Iranian authorities are not skimping on the repression of demonstrators to silence the revolts that have shaken Iran since the death of Mahsa Amini on September 16.
An attitude that could further complicate the diplomatic negotiations between Iran and the great powers (Russia, China, France, United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States informally), in order to save the Iranian nuclear agreement , even though the negotiations are stalling after a year and a half of exchanges.
For several days, the tone has risen.
Several European countries have called on Tehran to respect human rights.
France in particular asked, on Tuesday, October 4, for European sanctions against those responsible for these repressions which left more than a hundred dead, according to a report by the NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR) based in Norway.
"Given what is happening in Iran, the stakeholders in the nuclear negotiations are less enthusiastic about trying to finalize the agreement at all costs", observes David Rigoulet-Roze, associate researcher at Iris, specialist in nuclear energy. 'Iran.
“For its part, the regime is getting tougher in response to the protests and it is even less inclined to make any compromises that would make it feel weak. So it seems unlikely that Iran will change its position. compared to the West in the nuclear negotiations".
"We dance on a volcano"
Moreover, deciphers David Rigoulet-Roze, "human rights do not constitute a technical variable of the agreement. This does not prevent the stakeholders - in particular the Westerners - from displaying their positions outside the negotiations. This is the case with the new sanctions mentioned by the Europeans and the Americans in relation to the ongoing repression of these demonstrations”.
"The question of human rights is extremely important but if the negotiators add it to the discussions, there will be no agreement. And the Islamic Republic will judge that it is interference and use it as proof that these demonstrations are a plot from abroad", analyzes Thierry Coville, researcher at Iris and specialist in Iran.
It has already been done, with Iran's Supreme Leader saying on Monday that the "riots" were fomented by the United States and Israel and not organized by "ordinary Iranians".
France saw its charge d'affaires summoned to Tehran last week after the condemnation by the Quai d'Orsay of the "brutal repression" of the demonstrations.
"Iran considered that it was an interference to recall the fundamental principles of human rights and saw fit to let our embassy know about it," the Minister of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday. Foreign Affairs Catherine Colonna, after announcing in turn the summons of the Iranian charge d'affaires in Paris.
In this context, the position of France, which was slow to ask for sanctions against those responsible for the Iranian repression, was "perceived as a form of silence even if this undoubtedly stems more specifically from a prudential logic... We are dancing on a volcano and it is the lives of people in Iran that are at stake. Paris does not want to aggravate a situation which is already tragic. France does not want to add to it and give Tehran the pretext to justify accusations against conspiratorial character with supposed international interference", decrypts David Rigoulet-Roze.
Joe Biden caught in the crossfire
The brutal response of the Islamic Republic to the revolts of the Iranian street, especially places the American president Joe Biden in the embarrassment.
With the approach of the mid-term elections, which will take place on November 8 in the United States, "difficult for him to commit to a nuclear agreement with a country that does not respect human rights", underlines Thierry Coville.
An embarrassment that results in double talk.
Joe Biden said in a statement on Monday that "this week the United States will impose new sanctions on perpetrators of violence against peaceful protesters" in Iran.
To which, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre hastened to add that Washington could on the one hand condemn this repression, and on the other continue negotiations to try to resuscitate the international agreement. of 2015 on the Iranian nuclear.
"At the height of the Cold War, when President Reagan called the Soviet Union 'the evil empire', he was also conducting arms control negotiations" with the Russians, she justified.
In August, Iran agreed to back down from asking the United States to remove the Revolutionary Guard Corps from the blacklist of terrorist organizations, suggesting one less point of contention.
Earlier this week, the latest statements by the spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry suggested a rapprochement with the United States.
Nasser Kanani said Monday, October 3 that "messages between Iran and America were exchanged in New York", on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in mid-September, through the coordinator European Enrique Mora and other senior officials.
It is "still possible" to revive the nuclear deal, he added, saying that "efforts are underway through the European coordinator and some mediators, including the foreign ministers of the countries neighbours, to exchange messages in order to reach an agreement".
"If the other party,
Meanwhile, Tehran released an Iranian-American detained in Iran since 2016, Baquer Namazi, and his son Siamak Namazi, arrested in 2015. The decision was motivated by "medical necessity", the US State Department said, while Iran linked the move to the unfreezing of around $7 billion in funds stranded abroad according to the Islamic Republic of Iran News Agency (IRNA).
With this gesture, "the Islamic Republic is making a cautious step back," said Thierry Coville, for whom "current events are pushing Tehran for flexibility on the diplomatic level to obtain an agreement".
"There may be adjustments in the hostage diplomacy at the margins to release part of the funds in escrow. But this is not what will allow the signing of an agreement. An agreement is first of all a compromise integrating a set of constraints and we are not there yet", tempers David Rigoulet-Roze.
And the researcher recalls that even before the demonstrations, "the Iranian side was in a logic of obstruction".
Managing after "no deal"
Can these troubling concessions temper the shift that took place in mid-September?
Paris, Berlin and London, which still hoped to snatch an agreement after the summer, have lost patience with the acceleration of the Iranian nuclear program.
According to the latest quarterly report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Islamic Republic has further increased its stockpile of enriched uranium up to 60%, close to weapons grade, and it now has more than enough to launch into the manufacture of an atomic bomb if he enriched it a little more.
One more concern as "Iran does not want to give an answer to the IAEA concerning the presence of anthropogenic uranium found at three undeclared sensitive sites referring to the possible military dimension of the Iranian nuclear program: Marivan, Varamin and Turquzabad “, explains David Rigoulet-Roze, considering an impossible agreement under current conditions.
In a report published in May, the UN nuclear policeman pointed to the absence of "
There remains another point of tension: Iranian negotiators demand that Joe Biden guarantee respect for a future agreement, even in the event of a change of president in the United States in 2025. But for the American head of state, this is quite simply impossible, "because the functioning of American institutions does not allow it", notes David Rigoulet-Roze.
"Legally Joe Biden cannot commit in the event of a change of majority for a simple reason, which is that the JCPOA [Iranian nuclear agreement] is not an international treaty, but an agreement. The international treaties signed by the United States must be ratified by the American Congress. However, there will never be a sufficient majority to validate a possible Iranian treaty".
Also, for this specialist in Iran, after a year and a half of intense diplomatic exchanges, the rescue of the 2015 Iranian nuclear agreement is no longer relevant.
"It is the management of the post 'non-agreement' which is today considered hollow by Westerners in general and Americans in particular," he believes.
And this, in the face of an Iran "which has become a [nuclear] threshold country ... knowing that they now have enough high-level enriched uranium, associated with a know-how on which we will not return, to build a nuclear bomb if a political decision were taken to do so. Which does not seem to be the case yet".
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