Nuclear tensions, Mahsa protests and marches... Will you return the Iranian files to the Security Council?

Tehran -

Since the United States' unilateral withdrawal from the nuclear agreement in 2018, and the return of Washington's sanctions against Tehran, which in turn reduced its commitments to the agreement, the previous US government worked to activate the "trigger mechanism" against Iran, but to no avail.

With the Democrats' return to the White House, President Joe Biden's government made a decision to revive the nuclear deal, but it collided with Tehran's conditions aimed at lifting all sanctions on it, which led to the nuclear negotiations reaching a dead end.

This paved the way for the discussion of Iranian files in the United Nations institutions.

Rolling the ball of Iranian files in the corridors of the United Nations and issuing resolutions against Tehran raises a big question mark about its repercussions and the possibility of the return of the specter of “securization” to the Islamic Republic, in the sense of securing Iranian files when they are discussed internationally, and the possibility of referring them to the UN Security Council and the return of security sanctions against Tehran.

Al-Jazeera Net directed these and other questions to former diplomats and Iranian researchers, who agreed on the seriousness of the stage the country is going through in light of the UN resolutions, and encouraged their country's government to save the nuclear agreement, as a prelude to reducing tension with Western capitals.

In a Security Council meeting last month, Ukraine accused Iran of providing Russia with drones to be used in its war on Kyiv (French)

What are the most important Iranian files discussed in the corridors of the UN recently?

What are the decisions issued in this regard?

The prolongation of the nuclear negotiations in Vienna and the failure of the mediations aimed at saving the nuclear agreement have brought tension back to Iranian-Western relations, but the Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian’s admission of sending a “small number” of drones to Russia, months before the Russian war on Ukraine, increased Things get worse, and he hastened to roll the Iranian files in the corridors of the United Nations during the past months.

On November 17, the International Atomic Energy Agency's Board of Governors (composed of 35 countries) approved a resolution ordering Iran to "cooperate urgently with the IAEA's investigation into traces of uranium found at three undeclared sites."

This is the second decision of its kind against Iran regarding the IAEA's investigation, which has become an obstacle to talks to revive the nuclear deal, given Tehran's demand to end the investigation as one of the conditions for returning to its implementation.

After the recent protests that began in Iran in mid-September, protesting the death of the young woman, Mahsa Amini, after she was arrested by the "morality police" in Tehran on the pretext of her failure to wear modest clothing, Germany and Iceland submitted a draft resolution demanding that Tehran be punished "for the use of violence against the demonstrators." pacifists.”

And the UN Human Rights Council approved - last week - the formation of a fact-finding mission regarding what it described as "violations committed in the protests that have taken place in Iran for more than two months."

On the other hand, Iran's representative to the UN Human Rights Council, Khadija Karimi, said that Western countries lack moral sincerity in criticizing Tehran.

She described the debate as "disgraceful and shocking" and rejected all accusations, attacking Germany in particular, and saying it was violating the human rights of Iranians in cooperation with other countries through the sanctions imposed on Tehran.

Last July, the UN Security Council convened in a closed session to discuss the file of Iranian drones, which the Ukrainians and their Western allies say Russia is using to launch attacks in Ukraine.

The United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Rosemary DiCarlo, confirmed in the closed session that any transfer of drones from Iran without the prior approval of the Council would constitute a violation of Resolution No. (2231), which endorsed the Iranian nuclear agreement of 2015.

How did the Iranian authorities respond to the recent UN resolutions?

The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has rejected all UN resolutions issued against the Islamic Republic, accusing Western countries of conspiring against it and working to disrupt its nuclear program on the one hand, and interfering in its internal affairs by politicizing the human rights file on the other hand.

In response to the decision of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran began enriching uranium by 60% at the Fordow nuclear facility located near the city of Qom, south of the capital, Tehran, which is the level needed to produce an atomic bomb.

The agency reported that it had decided to use "advanced IR-6 centrifuges to produce enriched uranium to a purity of 60%," and threatened "a decisive response if its nuclear file was referred to the Security Council."

In the same context, the Iranian Foreign Ministry condemned "the imposition by a few Western countries of an anti-Iranian resolution on the Human Rights Council," stressing that it will not cooperate with the fact-finding committee stipulated in the recent resolution.

A spokesman for the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nasser Kanaani, confirmed that his country "has formed a national committee in the presence of experts, lawyers, and official and unofficial representatives within the framework of its national responsibilities, and that it is conducting a comprehensive investigation in the file."

Why did Tehran decide to enrich uranium by 60% at the Fordow nuclear facility?

"The Iranian decision comes in response to the intransigence of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which accepted the politicization of the Iranian nuclear file," according to the Iranian diplomat and former ambassador to Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Thailand, Mohsen Pak Ain, who described the Iranian response as falling within the framework of the policy of "commitment in exchange for commitment."

Pak Ain explained to Al-Jazeera Net that his country believes in the feasibility of the principle of dealing reciprocated with the international community, positively or negatively, stressing that Tehran has repeatedly announced that it will back down from the steps it took in response to the United States' withdrawal from the nuclear agreement if the Western parties fulfill their obligations in it.

He added that the roots of the accusations about finding traces of uranium in undeclared sites date back to before 2015;

He closed the file prior to the signing of the nuclear agreement, describing its reopening as the best evidence of the involvement of politics in technical issues, and that the decision of the Board of Governors of the Atomic Agency was issued with political motives and pressure from Washington and the European troika, he said.

Does the decision of the IAEA Board of Governors destroy the chances of saving the nuclear deal?

The failure of European mediation to bring the views of the Iranian and American sides closer together, and the Vienna nuclear negotiations reaching a dead end, paved the way for the return of the nuclear file to the meetings of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the complexity of the already complex nuclear file for decades, but Iranian observers still see an opportunity to save the agreement.

Meanwhile, the former Iranian ambassador to Norway, Sri Lanka and Hungary, Abdolreza Faraji Rad, is anticipating what he described as a "dangerous plan" being hatched against his country in the international corridors.

In his analysis of the tone of the second resolution of the IAEA Board of Governors, he said that he carries a veiled threat to refer the file to the Security Council in the event that Tehran does not cooperate with the agency's investigations.

Speaking to Al-Jazeera Net, the former Iranian diplomat believes that the nuclear file has become more complex after the failure of nuclear mediation, but he sees a glimmer of hope to save the agreement concluded in 2015, explaining that he was not obedient by all the signatories to it.

Faraji Rad urges Tehran to exert greater cooperation with the IAEA on the one hand, and to sit at the direct negotiating table with the United States on the other hand, in preparation for reviving the nuclear agreement and lifting sanctions and external pressures on the Iranian economy, and expecting Washington to welcome any positive step aimed at saving the agreement.

Why does Tehran reject the UN resolution to form a fact-finding committee on the recent protests?

Professor of International Law at the University of Tehran, Youssef Mollaei, attributes the reason for Tehran's refusal to cooperate with the fact-finding commission to its failure to recognize the resolution issued by the United Nations Human Rights Council, stressing that his country's failure to interact with the UN resolution will increase the pace of external pressure on it.

In his interview with Al-Jazeera Net, Mollaei indicated that some European countries and the United States imposed sanctions against individuals and entities in Iran, to which the latter responded in kind.

He stressed that these sanctions have no actual effect on the Iranian and American sides due to the estrangement between them, but the US sanctions may discourage other parties from dealing with Tehran.

Observers in Iran believe that any positive dealings with the fact-finding committee will open the door wide for the West to interfere in Tehran's internal affairs. At the same time, they criticize the delay in forming a similar committee to pull the rug from under the feet of countries that accuse it of suppressing the recent protests.

For his part, Professor of International Law, Reza Nasri, believes that the UN decision to form a fact-finding committee aims to return the Tehran file to the Security Council.

He said - in a tweet on Twitter - that "the solution to nullify the effect of this decision - legally, politically and popularly - lies in the formation of a reliable internal committee to carry out the task without its potential repercussions."

Bekdli: The internationalization of Iranian files comes to increase external pressure on Tehran (communication sites)

What are the possibilities of "securitization" of Iranian files after the issuance of recent UN resolutions on Tehran?

Ali Bekdli, a professor of international relations at Martyr Beheshti University, reads the discussion of Iranian files in international circles in the context of internationalizing Tehran's files and presenting it to world public opinion as an unnatural country, as a prelude to increasing external pressure against it.

Bekdley expected - in a statement to Al-Jazeera Net - that a third decision on the Iranian nuclear file be issued after 3 months, when the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency met.

He stressed that this decision may herald the return of the specter of "securization" that haunted the country until the signing of the nuclear agreement in 2015.

And he believed that the discussion of the two files, "Iranian marches in the Russian war on Ukraine and accusations of human rights violations, in the corridors of United Nations institutions comes to mobilize against Tehran," explaining that the return of "securization" means restoring all previous sanctions on the Islamic Republic, and obliging other countries to sever their relations. with Tehran.

Bekdley concluded that reviving the nuclear agreement will defuse the worsening crisis between Iran and the West, lift a large part of the US sanctions on the country, and open an outlet for the economy suffocated by external pressures, stressing that reducing tension between Tehran and Western capitals will reflect positively on stability inside Iran and the region.