Iran "on the defensive" as deadline for agreement with P5+1 approaches

(Baonghean) - Iran's parliament has just voted to pass a bill with many provisions aimed at "protecting Iran's national interests" against US demands. This move by Iran is believed to be able to hinder negotiation efforts between Iran and the P5+1 group (including the US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany), as the deadline for reaching a final agreement between the parties is approaching.

Iran puts up more obstacles

Iran’s parliament passed the bill with 199 votes in favor, 3 against and 5 abstentions, which would bar international inspectors from accessing “sensitive” military, security and non-nuclear sites, as well as nuclear documents and scientists. The bill also stipulates that Iran would be granted unrestricted access to peaceful nuclear knowledge, technology, research and development in “acceptable” areas, and that all sanctions against Iran must be lifted on the day of the deal’s signing. Only if all three conditions are met will the negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 group be valid.

Iran's parliament debates during a vote on the bill. Photo: The Guardian

The bill, which Iran’s parliament has just passed, must be reviewed and approved by the Guardian Council, Iran’s constitutional watchdog, before it becomes law. Analysts say that once it becomes law, the bill could hamper negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 group as Iran’s interests are too strictly protected. After reaching a “historic” agreement in Lausanne, Switzerland in April, Iran and the P5+1 are now in a crucial negotiation phase to reach a final agreement in just over a week.

However, one of the biggest disagreements between the two sides is the rights and access of international inspectors to Iran's nuclear facilities as well as the time limit for lifting sanctions. Even with the preliminary agreement signed in Lausanne, people have noticed the "uncertainty" of not clarifying whether unilateral sanctions imposed by the US, the European Union and the United Nations on Iran will be lifted or only suspended, and when will they start? Who and what mechanism will evaluate Iran's implementation of the agreement as a prerequisite for lifting sanctions? Until now, the West has been leaning towards the option that the international community can inspect any place suspected of having secret nuclear facilities and the inspection will last from 20 to 25 years.

The US State Department also issued a statement on June 21 stating: “All parties are clear about what needs to be included in the final agreement, including access to nuclear facilities, and we will never accept a treaty without this condition.” Regarding the lifting of sanctions, the West proposed that the European Union’s sanctions be lifted first, the US sanctions be lifted after Iran’s compliance with the agreement is confirmed, while certain UN sanctions will remain. Therefore, Iran’s “finalization” that the sanctions must be lifted immediately upon signing the agreement, while “closing the door” to international inspectors on facilities that are identified by a very “vague” adjective as “sensitive” is no different from placing more obstacles in front of the negotiating teams of both sides in the process of reaching an acceptable agreement.

Is the June 30 deadline feasible?

According to the latest information sent back from Vienna (Austria), negotiators from Iran and the P5+1 group have met five days a week for the past several weeks, demonstrating great efforts by both sides in this “final” phase. However, according to the description of some diplomats who have had access to these negotiations, the document that the two sides are trying to draft looks “very patchwork with lines of text mixed with dozens of blank lines”, not to mention the 4 or 5 accompanying appendices are not yet complete.

Russia's chief negotiator Sergey Ryabkov also said that "the pace of negotiations is slowing down." For weeks, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has continued to resist US demands for inspectors to have access to military facilities and interview nuclear scientists. Therefore, although the deadline set by both sides for reaching a framework agreement is June 30, both sides believe that this is an impossible task. Currently, some sources say that the negotiations are likely to be extended until July 9. Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also affirmed that his country is not under time pressure to reach a comprehensive agreement with the P5+1 group. However, Mr. Zarif is criticizing the P5+1 group for making "excessive demands" during the negotiation process, and at the same time declaring that Iran will not back down in the face of such pressure.

Protecting Iranian negotiators from “excessive demands” is also the purpose of the Iranian parliamentarians when they voted to pass the bill related to the core issues in the Iran nuclear negotiations. However, a well-known principle in difficult negotiations is that the parties must know when to advance and retreat, and must know how to make concessions to a certain extent to reach an agreement acceptable to both. Therefore, once Iran insists on “defensive” with regulations that ensure maximum benefits for itself, while the West is also “no pushover”, perhaps the assessment that Iran and the P5+1 group can sign a final agreement on July 9 is still too optimistic.

Thuy Ngoc