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The end of this week’s negotiations in Amman between the United States and Iran on the future of the Iranian nuclear program followed familiar but unconventional coordination. At the request of Iran, the parties did not speak face to face. Instead, Tehran representatives sat in a room in Washington in another field, while Omani Foreign Minister Badr Al -Busididi started back and forth with the messages.
In part, this preparation reflects years of mutual threats and poisonous discourse by these permanent enemies, and Tehran’s lack of confidence towards the Trump administration. But its willingness to speak – even if it is through the wall – also indicates the common willingness to pay for diplomacy rather than war. It renews the possibility that Iran will accept to limit its nuclear program in exchange for lifting the sanctions that destroyed its economy.
In Iran, there is a feeling that “this man [Trump] It can be delivered. “No Republican or Democratic President can do what he can do. He is not a man details, but he is in a hurry,” says Nasser Hadian, a professor of retired political science at Tehran University.
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The United States and Iran spent the best part of a decade to subscribe to the nuclear program in Tehran. A new round of conversations indicating a possible way of dilemma.
The risks of both sides cannot be higher. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that failure to quickly reach an agreement would lead to war, as the “package” in the United States is militarily. For its part, Iran wants to avoid such a war – and to destroy its nuclear facilities – while reviving the economy suffered by years of Western sanctions.
Date of lack of confidence
Mr. Trump says it aims to prevent Iran from being able to produce a nuclear weapon – Iran’s ambition says it refuses. The weekend meeting represents this third round of indirect talks on reducing the Iranian nuclear program, a diplomatic melting that could not be visible only months ago.
Recently, the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khounai, rejected the idea of ​​talks with Washington, saying that negotiating with the Trump administration will not be smart or honorable.
Iran’s doubts are partially from what happened in the aftermath of the last major nuclear deal that signed with the United States and other global authorities in 2015. Known as the JCOA Plan (JCPOA), Iran’s sanctions were supposed to grant relief as long as the strict and achieved borders in its nuclear program were supposed to be obligated.
Although Iran maintained its side, it received a few sanctions. Then Mr. Trump removed the United States from the entire agreement in 2018, describing it as “the worst deal in history”, and re -imposed on US sanctions.
After waiting for a year to see if the other signatories in JCPOA can provide its promised benefits, Iran has begun to increase its nuclear program. It has broken the reduction of enrichment of uranium to 3.67 % purity, so that today enriches to 60 % purity – a close technical step away from the levels required to make a weapon.
More elimination of the relationship between the two sides, early 2020, Mr. Trump ordered the drone strike that killed the commander of the Iranian revolutionary forces, the dean. General Qassem Solimani, in Baghdad.
Mr. Hadian says that these measures left Tehran other than Wafel who does not trust Washington’s intentions. Now “the issue is how we can ensure that President Trump and the next president will be loyal” to any agreement they make, he explains. The embarrassment is the feeling of Iran with the benefits of sanctions.
Transformation
Washington’s latest initiatives began in March, when Mr. Trump sent a personal message to Ayatollah Khamanni, demanding a nuclear deal within two months.
The American awareness came at a time of dramatic change throughout the Middle East, which, among other things, has the weakest of Iran’s regional allies.
It is worth noting that the conflict with Israel strongly harmed the main members of the Iranian “Axis of Resistance” coalition, especially Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. Meanwhile, the Syrian -Iranian ally, Bashar al -Assad, collapsed last December. Israel claims that a round of air strikes and missile attacks on Iran last year destroyed the country’s air defense systems.
In light of these weak points, facing an economy that stumbled on the sanctions, Iran’s position began to transform. The chief Iranian negotiator, Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi, pointed out that Iran is ready to adhere to the strict verification of a planned nuclear program.
Mr. Araghchi has also sharpened Iran’s stadium for Mr. Trump’s known desire for deals by saying in a text published online by Iran’s mission to the United Nations that the Islamic Republic’s economy is an “trillion dollar opportunity” open to future American investment. He described plans to build 19 nuclear energy reactors, as “tens of billions of dollars in potential contracts.
The current round of talks in Amman started in early April.
Strong cards
Hassan Ahmadine, an assistant professor in Middle East and North Africa studies at Tehran University, says Iranian weaknesses do not mean that Tehran has no influence in the current talks.
It is noted that after the withdrawal of Mr. Trump from the nuclear deal in 2018, Iran has multiplied to enhance its defensive capabilities, including ballistic missile programs and drones. “The Iranian nuclear program is [also] He says: “Iran’s cards in its hands are much stronger than they were negotiating on JCPOA in 2015,” he says.
In fact, the revolutionary guard dean. General Krasol Sana Rad, a close assistant to Mr. Khamanni, pointed to the approval of talks by the Iranian security structure. He said last week that “the battlefield supports diplomacy … and nuclear negotiators are political soldiers and the origins of the Islamic Republic.”
This wide support was emphasized by Mr. Khamnai on Thursday, when he quoted the Shi’a Imam in the seventh century about the need to mediate sometimes in the peace that was distorted.
And Mr. Khounai quoted Imam Hassan, saying, “It is temporary.” “This hegemony is not intended for unbelievers and hypocrites to be permanent.”