The French magazine "Le Point" (Le Point) said that Moscow, which remained the West's ally against Iran despite entering into the most serious crisis with it since the end of the Cold War due to its invasion of Ukraine, suddenly turned the table and now demands guarantees that US sanctions will not impede its future cooperation with Tehran.
In his report to the magazine, Armen Arifi explained that Western and Russian diplomats remained united in Vienna to find a solution to the thorny Iranian nuclear issue, until representatives of the great powers (France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, China and the United States) agreed, after months of practically intense negotiations with Iran's representatives, on a text that limits Much of Iran's nuclear weapons activities, in exchange for lifting part of the US sanctions stifling the economy of the Islamic Republic.
He added that despite the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Russian, European, American and Chinese negotiators continued in a common front to resolve the last points of contention that allow Washington and Tehran to return to the framework of the first nuclear agreement signed in July 2015, before the United States unilaterally withdraws from it and resumes Iran's own uranium enrichment program.
But the crisis in Ukraine finally exceeded the Iranian nuclear issue - as the writer says - and when it seemed that an agreement was about to be signed in Austria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov unexpectedly announced - at a press conference from Moscow - that "there is a problem from the Russian side," explaining "We have asked our American colleagues to provide written guarantees that sanctions will not affect our right to free and full trade, economic, investment, and military-technical cooperation with Iran."
blackmail
The writer pointed out that Russia, on which the West imposed unprecedented sanctions in response to its invasion of Ukraine, targets its financial and banking sector to inflict heavy losses on its economy and isolate it from the rest of the world to force it to change its position. As an ally of Tehran and Beijing, and as a potential beneficiary of Iran's surplus uranium stockpile.
Andrei Kortunov, director general and member of the Russian International Thought Center, explains that Sergey Lavrov wants to ensure that new US sanctions against Russia will not affect his country's cooperation with Iran, and therefore he asks the United States as many exceptions as possible from these measures.
Moscow's request at the last moment caused astonishment to Russia's Western partners, who were united by the desire to prevent Iran from obtaining the atomic bomb, especially since diplomats usually avoid confusing files, otherwise the matter, as a French official at the Elysee indicated, "is about blackmail, not diplomacy." "So far in Vienna we have worked well with Russia, and we call on it to assume all its responsibilities as a guarantor of the JCPOA, and then act according to our common interest in ending these negotiations," he added.
out of the subject
As for the United States, the Russian request was considered "out of topic", and its Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, said - in an interview with CBS Network (CBS) - that "the sanctions that were adopted against Russia have nothing to do with the Iranian nuclear agreement; they are two completely different things. He added, "It is in Russia's interest that Iran is not able to acquire a nuclear weapon or not have the ability to produce a weapon very quickly, regardless of our relationship with Russia since its invasion of Ukraine."
However, it is not yet clear - according to the author - if it will remain just a Russian tactical maneuver, with the aim of obtaining some economic concessions from Washington, or if it is a change in strategy that simply aims to stop the signing of the Iranian nuclear agreement if Moscow's conditions are not met.
In this, Ali Vaez, director of the Iran project at the International Crisis Group, says that "it is difficult at this stage to understand what Lavrov wants."
Fayez explains that the United States can easily issue waivers to reassure Moscow if it wants to ensure that it does not prevent it from meeting the end of the JCPOA deal, but "if it wants to take advantage of the JCPOA to break the wall of US sanctions related to Ukraine, it will be impossible to satisfy it."
Even Iran, Moscow's ally, was surprised by the Russian request, which came at a time when people were happy about the approach of reaching an agreement that would allow the gradual lifting of sanctions - as the writer concludes - but it expressed this in a diplomatic manner, and Iranian diplomatic spokesman Saeed Khatibzad replied in his press conference The weekly said that he "knew of Lavrov's statements in the media", and is waiting "to obtain details from the diplomatic channel."