Iran Spokesman Again Links Europe’s Natural Gas Need To Nuclear Talks

Mohammad Marandi, who acts as de facto spokesman for Iran's nuclear negotiating team, has tried to link energy needs in Europe to ongoing talks for reviving the 2015 agreement.

Marandi published a series of tweets from his interview with Al Jazeera news channel on Saturday, saying, “Iran will be patient. The US under Obama systematically violated the deal and under Trump/Biden it imposed maximum pressure against innocent citizens... Winter is approaching and the EU is facing a crippling energy crisis.”

Emphasizing that “Iran won't accept ambiguities or loopholes in the text,” he said, “There should be no loopholes that can be used to undermine a deal. There are problems with a few words and the US can easily fix them.”

“The US domestic situation is a key reason why a nuclear deal has been allusive (elusive). While some EU governments have already asked Iran about oil as well as natural gas exports, Biden is fearful that foes will depict him and certain allies as weak,” he added.

Tehran is trying to sell the agreement as beneficial to Europe's energy crunch, regardless of the fact that even with no sanctions or restrictions on Iran’s exports, the country is unable to provide European countries with natural gas. 

Iranian media repeatedly talks about ‘Europe’s freezing winter” while it has almost nothing to do with Tehran’s crude oil exports, except generally helping to bring down oil prices. Europe’s need to replace Russian gas is a specific issue on its own that Iran cannot help with due to its own shortages. A nuclear agreement now cannot impact Iran’s ability to export natural gas for the foreseeable future mainly due to Iran’s huge domestic need.