Translated by S-Yaqubi_According to Naba Khabar, Saudi Arabia intends to participate in the JCPOA negotiating meeting. France, which had the most significant challenges with Iran in the negotiations leading to the signing of a nuclear deal in 1994, has backed Saudi Arabia’s entry into the talks.
The request to add another participant to the nuclear deal meeting comes as Iran and Russia have explicitly stated their opposition to imposing preconditions and similar actions in the JCPOA issue. Furthermore, they want to revive this agreement in its current form while all parties return to their commitments. Meanwhile, it was reaffirmed yesterday that Yossi Cohen, the Director of Mossad, the national intelligence agency of Israel., will travel to Washington in the coming weeks to consult with Biden government officials about Iran.
Macron: New negotiations must be tough
The French President has said any new talks on a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran should be tough. According to Al-Arabiya, Emmanuel Macron said that the presence of Saudi Arabia should accompany the talks. Macron called the withdrawal of other regional countries from the nuclear deal talks is a mistake and stressed that this mistake should be avoided.
Western negotiators, including new US administration officials, have previously spoken of the need to take into account the concerns of the Gulf Arab states and Israel in dealing with Iran and in the process of reviving the JCPOA. But this is the first time one of the signatories of JCPOA has explicitly mentioned the need for a direct role of one of the regional governments in this issue.
Emmanuel Macron has taken such a position while negotiating between Iran and the United States for a long time and shape negotiations to revive JCPOA. Even his many interventions led to Mohammad Javad Zarif’s short trips to France and the small town of Biarritz to persuade Trump on the sidelines of the G7 summit to lift sanctions on Iran and not prevent the sale of Iranian oil and the return of money to the country. However, now he stands elsewhere in the region’s perpetual power struggles and opens the door for Saudi Arabia to enter into negotiations with Iran and the P5 + 1.
Bana Farhan: We will talk to the Biden government
In this regard, the Saudi Foreign Minister made allegations against Tehran and said that his country would discuss Iran’s activities and its nuclear program with Joe Biden’s government. “Regional security is important for European countries and the Biden government,” Faisal bin Farhan said, as Al-Arabiya quoted. Saudi Arabia and its allies on the Persian Gulf have insisted that they should be present in any dialogue this time. They also said the new talks should address Iran’s ballistic missile program and its support for various groups in the region. Of course, Saudi Arabia is embroiled in a regional confrontation with Iran, the most famous of which is the Saudis’ years-long war in Yemen. Yemen’s Ansarollah, which is at war with Saudi Arabia, interacts with Iran to exchange the ambassadors. The Saudis and allies like the United Arab Emirates, of course, supported the US “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran during Donald Trump’s four years in office, and in the shadow of this campaign, they continued their confrontation with Iran.
Macron: The Time is Limited
Macron agreed with the Iranian authorities on a subject, and that is the limited time to act on the nuclear deal; however, he has discussed this issue with different reasons and literature. According to Al-Arabiya, the French President told reporters that there was very little time left to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Iranian officials have stressed that Biden does not have much time to decide in this regard; Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has explained this in an article in Farn offers, as well as in his other positions; Majid Takht-e Ravanchi, Iran’s representative to the United Nations, also said “there is a limited opportunity” in his speeches to the media. Moreover, Kazem Gharib Abadi, Iran’s representative to international organizations in Vienna, stressed that if this limited opportunity is not used, the amount and form of Iran’s cooperation with the International Agency will change from “extraordinary” to “normal” cooperation.
Sullivan: We must return to diplomacy with Iran
Meanwhile, the US President’s National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has affirmed the government’s position on diplomatic engagement with Iran. Jake Sullivan, in a virtual conference with Robert O’Brien, Donald Trump’s national security adviser, and Condoleezza Rice, George W. Bush’s national security adviser, Criticized the withdrawal of the Donald Trump administration from the nuclear deal and said: “We have to return to diplomacy with Iran” and after affirmation on the Biden administration’s approach is different from the Trump administration in the face of threats from Iran, continued that: “Iran’s nuclear program has improved significantly over the past few years, they have come much closer to making an atomic bomb since the former US administration withdrew from the nuclear deal and their ability to make ballistic missiles has improved dramatically.”
“All of this leads us to return to diplomacy if we can,” Sullivan said. Also, he claimed that “We have to pay attention to these significant threats and other destructive Iranian behavior in the region; however, our first vital priority must be to tackle Iran’s growing nuclear crisis and getting closer to having the equipment needed for nuclear weapons.”
“We want to make sure that we have some elements [of the agreement] and impose restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program, which has been abandoned over the past two years,” said Sullivan, Biden’s National Security Adviser.
New US government representative contacts Troika about Iran Affairs:
It was also reported that Robert Malley, the US special envoy for Iran affairs, has consulted with German, British and French officials about JCPOA.
Informed European sources have stated that the talks were held to summarize the JCPOA issue and also to assess Europe’s position on this case.
Robert Malley was appointed as the Special Representative in Iran affairs last weekend to take the position previously held by Elliott Abrams and Brian Hook in the Trump administration.
Malley was the former head of the International Crisis Group and a diplomat in the Barack Obama administration. The news of the government’s decision to appoint him to this position was met with widespread opposition from the Iran opponents as far as VOA published two reports against him. Nevertheless, But Biden’s decision remains unchanged.
