Iranian Lawmaker Says Western Guarantees Needed For A Deal

Iran will not surrender to any kind of threats, pressures or sanctions, a prominent lawmaker said Monday, while nuclear talks were taking place in Vienna.

Jalil Rahimi Jahanabadi, a member of parliament’s foreign policy and national security committee, told the government’s official news website IRNA that it is the West that should act “rationally” in the nuclear negotiations.

“We hope that the West will understand the Islamic Republic’s message,” Rahimi a member of the hardliner majority in parliament said, “because [we] will not dismantle our nuclear installations or reduce our [uranium] enrichment.” He vowed to keep the uranium, which Iran has enriched to 20 and 60-percent, and not accept international monitoring beyond the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, without the West giving a series of guarantees.

First, the United States and Europe must provide a guarantee not to leave the nuclear deal. They must also guarantee that oil export revenues reach the Iranian government.

Iran has been emphasizing the issue of a guarantee by the US to stay in a new nuclear agreement even before multilateral talks started in April 2021. Tehran’s argument is that former US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and Iran needs assurance that this will not happen again.

However, no US president can provide such a guarantee if an agreement is not a formal treaty, which would need Senate ratification – an almost impossible task with the highly controversial JCPOA.

Iranian officials have also demanded a host of other guarantees, including a pledge by the West that Iran would be able to attract foreign investments if it agrees to limit its nuclear program. The United States has promised to lift its oil export and banking sanctions, but no one can guarantee if Iran would receive foreign investments.

Rahimi told IRNA that the West does not realize that the world has changed and countries like China or Iran will not carry out their orders. “Iran, in terms of military, political and economic power is not a weak state to be subservient to the West, but Westerners look at the world as though it is still the 18th or 19th centuries…”

The Wall Street Journal on Sunday cited the European Union's coordinator of the talks, Enrique Mora, as saying the negotiations to restore the JCPOA are close to completion, but it remained unclear whether Tehran will accept the final deal. The text of a deal could be closed in the coming hours, Mora had said. An unnamed Iranian foreign ministry official denied the report.

“Given the continuation of discussions on some remaining important issues, we’re not yet at a stage to finalize the text. “We believe that Vienna Talks can be concluded soon provided that the other party makes an appropriate decision. But we are not at that stage yet,” IRNA quoted the official as saying.

After sixteen months of negotiations, diplomats gathered in Vienna last week for what some said was a last-ditch effort to reach an agreement. Apparently, Iran insists on receiving guarantees and also demands that an investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency of its past secret nuclear work be shelved.

Rahimi also said that despite its capabilities in enriching uranium, Tehran is ready for talks to resolve the issue but “the problem Iran has with Western countries is the degree of their understanding of global realities.”