Washington Outlet Claims Iran Nuclear Talks Over
United States negotiations over reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal are at an end, the pro-conservative Washington Free Beacon reported Wednesday.
United States negotiations over reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal are at an end, the pro-conservative Washington Free Beacon reported Wednesday.
The Beacon said this was concluded by senior US officials in a classified briefing two weeks ago to members of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee. The outlet cited Darrell Issa, a Republican house member, and “other congressional sources familiar with the briefing.”
Issa, a supporter of former president Donald Trump, said they “are stymied over how they get to a deal because they’ve negotiated all there was to negotiate.” Issa said Iran was “basically on the eve of getting a nuclear weapon and don’t want to be talked out of it.”
Since the confidential House briefing September 14, US officials have publicly stressed their support for continuing efforts to revive the 2015 agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), which limited Iran’s nuclear program and eased international sanctions.
A State Department official told journalists September 22 that talks had “hit a wall.” Ned Price, State Department spokesman, defended the JCPOA Monday by arguing US withdrawal had increased Iran’s “actions against our partners, the potential targeting even of American facilities and personnel…[making Iran] more aggressive, and … deadlier.”
Iran Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian restated Wednesday that Iran wanted US ‘guarantees’ of economic cushions should the US leave a revived JCPOA, as it did during Trump’s presidency in 2018 when imposing ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions.
Several US senators told Iran International that Washington should stop talks with the Islamic Republic over revival of the 2015 nuclear deal, especially considering the ongoing popular protests.
But the tightly controlled broadcaster always juxtaposes the reformists with staunch hard-liners who offer counterarguments to the reformists' shy statements about why the system needs to open up to survive.
Even some of the reformists who have taken part in the debates on the Iranian state TV, have said in interviews with relatively independent media outlets in Iran that the state TV's openness is questionable.
Sadeq Zibacalam a usual suspect on Iranian media and foreign-based televisions to comment on almost everything during the past 30 years, has said in an interview with Didban Iran website that "state TV officials' behavior is authoritarian. Like all authoritarian regimes, the state TV also never acknowledges that there might be flaws and weaknesses in the system."
He added that "the grudge and hatred that has been accumulated in the Iranian society over the years is [partly] due to ignoring these weaknesses." He added that the state TV which operates under Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei "has never had a realistic approach to ongoing developments during the past 43 years."
Accordiong to Didban Iran, many observers have been recently criticizing the state TV “which is no longer the point of reference for news and information for the people of Iran." In fact, government media has long ceased to be credible and instead people rely on Persian-speaking broadcasters, such as Iran International and Manoto TV for news and views.
"Just like the government, the state TV attributes the protests to US conspiracies and the actions of Zionists, monarchists and rioters," said Zibakalam, adding that the state TV is part of the Iranian government. It is no surprise as the chairman of the television, Payman Jebelli has reiterated time and again that it is the government's not the people's media. He further added that the state TV does not have any plan to help the regime get out of the current crisis.
Meanwhile, Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a cleric who was former President Mohammad Khatami's chief of staff in late 1990s and early 2000s, said in an interview with Didban Iran that "the state TV's new approach of openness is temporary." He added that some ruling hard-liners say that putting one step back from their uncompromising positions might lead to a domino-like collapse of the system.
Abtahai, who was the head of the Iranian radio in the late 1980s and early 1990s, said, "I believe the open debates that are currently taking place on the state TV might not continue."
Some in the Iranian government believe that hard-liners should not put even one step back from their positions as a result of the protests that followed Mahsa Amini's death in custody, Abtahi argued. This school of thought does not tolerate dialogue, he added. "The other school of thought is reformism. Those who believe in this maintain thatwrong approaches could be corrected in a step-by-step approach," he said. However, he added that social pressure can force hard-liner officials to make compromises about some of their "principles".
However, critics of reformists say that more than two decades of a step-by-step approach has made matters worse and hard-liners more dominant in the government.
Two days after comedian Mehran Modiri belatedly expressed support for the protests, the state TV announced that it has cancelled his talk show, in a sign of intolerance.
The association issued a statement on Sunday saying that the Iranian-American community will no longer be silent in the face of appeasement of and association with “this evil regime.”
The Board of Directors and Board of Trustee's of the Iranian-American Medical Association (IAMA) said in its statement that Dr. Shervin Mortazavi’s meeting with Raisi – which was revealed following a photo of the meeting – was not scheduled by the association, adding that the IAMA was completely unaware of such action.
“Dr. Mortazavi has publicly stated this was a private engagement that had nothing to do with his role at IAMA,” the statement read.
Strongly condemning the meeting, IAMA said that “Regardless of the reason, this was not acceptable by the Board members, hence accordingly and unanimously the Board asked him (Mortazavi) to resign immediately.”
It added that the IAMA has also asked him “to distance himself completely from our organization, which during its 30 years history has solely been a scientific, humanitarian, non-political, non-religious, and non-profit organization.”
“We, as IAMA members, like other Iranians all over the world, strongly condemn what has happened to Masa Amini, a young innocent girl as a distinct violation of human rights,” it said, referring to the death of the 22-year-old Kurdish girl whose death in custody of hijab police has triggered nationwide unrest in Iran.
