Former European Officials Urge Iran, US To Reach A Nuclear Deal
More than 40 former European officials have called on both the US and Iranian leadership to successfully complete the negotiations to revive the nuclear deal.
More than 40 former European officials have called on both the US and Iranian leadership to successfully complete the negotiations to revive the nuclear deal.
The open letter published on Tuesday is led by the International Crisis Group, which is a Brussels-based transnational non-profit think tank consisting of policymakers and academics that describes itself as "working to prevent wars and shape policies that will build a more peaceful world".
The letter, signed by members of the European Leadership Network, board members of the group and council members from the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that the parties to the Vienna nuclear talks are now within touching distance of reinstating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Expressing their growing concern over the fate of the talks, they said a period of stasis in the talks threatens to undo the progress made in recent months “toward reinstating a non-proliferation achievement that is crucial for international peace and security.”
“At a time when transatlantic cooperation has become all the more critical to respond against Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, for U.S. and European leaders to let slip the opportunity to defuse a nuclear crisis in the Middle East would be a grave mistake”, read the letter.
The US and the Islamic Republic have held more than one year of talks to revive the JCPOA, but the diplomatic process is at a standstill since March. Iran is demanding the removal of its Revolutionary Guard from the US list of terrorist organizations, something the administration has so far not accepted.
On the sidelines of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s testimony at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, Virginia’s Tim Kaine and Maryland’s Ben Cardin told Iran International that former president Donalds Trump’s move to abandon the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) made Iran move closer to nuclear breakout capacity.
In reaction to remarks by a former senior Iranian lawmaker who disclosed that Iran’s aim from the beginning was to produce nuclear weapons, they concurred that regular “intrusive inspections” and finding “an enforceable deal” is the way to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
Kaine said that the 2015 nuclear agreement, “provided a significant window of time before they could break out”, calling for returning to intrusive inspections to enable the world to know if Iran is going to violate its pledges under the JCPOA and “to make sure that they are honoring their commitments”.
“The Trump decision to terminate the JCPOA has now put Iran right back at the threshold of the breakout capacity, which anyone would have predicted”, he said.
Cardin said, “We never thought they were giving up their desire to be a nuclear-weapon state. But it was put in check, it was put on hold. We have lost that now”.
About Iran’s demand for removing the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) from the US list of foreign terrorist organizations (FTO), Cardin said it is a proper concern to question whether there will be some relaxation on that.
On the sidelines of the session, Texas Republican senator Ted Cruz also told Iran International’s Arash Alaei that it is a positive step that Blinken acknowledged terrorist activities by the IRGC, but expressed disappointment that he “wasn't willing to answer straight out” if it is true that Iranians have refused to renounce any intention of killing former US officials.
“Three times I asked Secretary Blinken that question, three times he refused to answer the question. I think the reason is obvious, because the answer... is yes”, he said.
Cruz said it is “utterly indefensible” to delist the IRGC and give the Islamic Republic billions of dollars even when it is “actively trying to murder former US officials”. “The IRGC is a vicious terrorist organization”, he stated.
During the committee session earlier in the day, several Senators told Secretary Blinken to walk away from the Vienna negotiations to restore the nuclear deal with Iran.
"It was said [in the interview] that there were several people in the beginning who believed that there was no problem with building [a nuclear] weapon to inspire awe in the enemy… but that using it was not permissible. This let the hypocrites to report the Islamic Republic's nuclear activities as [an attempt] to build bombs," a statement published Monday on Motahari's official website claimed.
Iranian officials always refer to the exiled Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) as 'hypocrites'.
The Islamic Republic has never pursued the policy or aimed at building a nuclear bomb as per Supreme Leader's view its production is religiously forbidden (haram), the statement further said.
In response to a question in an interview published Sunday about his assertion in the past that using a nuclear bomb was religiously banned (haram) -- but building one, as a deterrent, was not – Motahari said that Iran’s nuclear program had aimed to develop nuclear weapons as a deterrent in its initial stages, but that the program was not properly kept secret, which led to its disclosure by the MEK.
All of Motahari's controversial remarks on the nuclear issue have now been removed from the text of the interview with Iran Student Correspondents Association (ISCA News). The text now only shows the sentence "The Supreme Leader believes that building nuclear weapons is completely impermissible."
The original text, however, left very little room for claiming "misrepresentation" of Motahari's remarks. Motahari had said that an Iranian bomb could have ensured "great deterrence" if it had been kept secret and tested as it was done by Pakistan. "Other countries take consideration of nuclear power so I believe that we should have followed through with what we had started," the original text had also quoted him as saying.
As proof of his claim, Motahari had argued that a country only aiming to have peaceful nuclear technology would begin with launching nuclear reactors, not an enrichment program. "Carrying out enrichment directly gives rise to suspicions that we aim at building a bomb," the original interview text said while stressing that Khamenei now believes that building a bomb is "totally haram".
Western governments and their allies allege that Iran's nuclear program aims at building nuclear weapons, but the Islamic Republic has always insisted that the program is solely for peaceful purposes including power generation.
Motahari's remarks caused quite a stir in the media, and he has been accused of making false claims. A website with links to Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Nour News, refuted Motahari's remarks within hours from the publication of the interview.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran's peaceful nuclear program has never had a military dimension and statements by unauthorized individuals in this regard are a result of their unfamiliarity with the matter or their particular political views," Nour News quoted an "informed source" as saying while the MEK on Sunday cited Motahari's remarks as proof of its revelation in August 2002 that Iran was running secret facilities for enrichment in Natanz and for production of heavy water in Arak.
This is not the first time Iranian officials mention earlier plans for building nuclear weapons. In his memoires, Iran's former president, Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani has said that Iran was considering building a nuclear bomb during the war with Iraq (1980-1988) but never followed it through. In a secret letter to then Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1988 which later became public, Mohsen Rezaei, former commander of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), had said that Iran had to have "laser and nuclear weapons" to be able to deter Iraqi aggression.
