It seems that the West's worst fears about the negotiations with Tehran (concerning reviving the nuclear deal) were realized. As the sixth round of the talks did not pay off, now a new team of negotiators will be formed under hardline president Ebrahim Raisi. There are indicators that the new team will embody the new president's orientation, which is expected to prolong the negotiations and make them all the more difficult.
Since it decided to stop negotiating with the US on June 20, 2021, Iran has sent mixed signals about the negotiations. Though three months have passed since the negotiations stopped (and two since Raisi became president and formed a cabinet), Iran has not announced a date for resuming them. Nevertheless, Ali Bagheri Kani was designated a political deputy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran, so one can expect that the team of negotiators is about to be complete. The political deputy of the foreign ministry usually leads the negotiators' team; this could mean that Iran will return to the negotiating table soon. As Kani is an outspoken opponent of Iran's nuclear deal, the negotiations will most probably be tough.
Mixed signals
Since Ebrahim Raisi came to power in August 2021, he has always stressed that he is committed to the nuclear deal. There is more to such statements than the fact that resuming the negotiations was approved, and even advocated, by the Iranian Supreme Leader; they actually show that Raisi has a personal interest in resuming the negotiations and sealing the deal. Raisi believes that he 'has to' negotiate with the west, though he also believes that relationships with western countries are not of significant importance. More than once did he make it clear that his top priorities will be improving the economic situation, solving domestic issues, and that the Iranian nuclear deal will not be his government's prime concern. He pointed out that his foreign policy plans will neither begin, nor end with negotiations with the west.
Iranian officials have been sending mixed signals concerning the return to the negotiations. For example, foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian stressed that Iran will not go to negotiations for the sake of negotiating, and that Iran will not negotiate for ever. He also stated that resuming the negotiations must be concurrent with lifting the sanctions on Iran. In addition, Fida Hussain Maliki, member of the Commission of National Security and Foreign Policy in Iran's parliament said onSeptember 23 that the nuclear deal is no longer a priority of the Iranian regime.
On September 14, Ali Bagheri Kani succeeded Abbas Araghch as a political deputy of Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs. This means that the leader of the negotiation team will be one of the bitterest opponents of the nuclear deal. Kani repeatedly criticized the former negotiation team and former president Hassan Rouhani. He is not opposing certain articles of the deal or to the negotiators' approach; he is rejecting the concept of negotiations in the first place, as he refuses any attempts to restrict the Iranian nuclear program.
The rise of the diehard Kani makes it more than likely that the negotiations will stall. There is even a possibility to return to the approach that was adopted during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency, when the negotiation team was led by former secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili. Kani was a leading negotiator at that time. There also has been a debate about whether the relationship between Kani and the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei would influence the negotiations. As Kani's brother (Misbah al-Huda Bagheri Kani) is one of Khamenei's sons-in-law, it is expected that Kani will be the Supreme Leader's voice in the negotiations.
Back to the mixed signals, it is noticeable that while Kani adopts a hostile attitude towards the west, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister for Diplomatic and Economic Affairs has a long history of engaging with the west. Mehdi Safari, who succeeded Rasoul Mohajer, was Iran's ambassador to Austria, China and Russia. He was also responsible for American and European affairs in the foreign ministry. This cannot be mere coincidence.
Appointing these new officials and not setting a specific date for resuming the nuclear talks show that Iran is keen on maximizing gains and minimizing concessions from the negotiations by depending on several conservative and hardline politicians who seem to have massive influence within the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Expected obstacles
Though the approach of Iranian negotiators (regardless of their orientations) will be always in line with Khamenei's view, a negotiating team still has some space to maneuver and to act in accordance with its own background and political convictions. With the rise of hardliners, it is expected that the negotiations will be an uphill struggle, facing some obstacles that will make it difficult to reach an agreement to the satisfaction of all parties. The most important of these obstacles are the following:
1. Iran insists that the negotiations must be restricted to the Iranian nuclear file:
Iran refuses to discuss any new issues with the west. This particularly applies to its ballistic missile program and its regional interferences. In his first press conference as a president, Raisi said that negotiations with the west will be restricted to the nuclear deal. 'Regional issues or the ballistic missile issue are non-negotiable', he stressed. However, the US is pushing for including these two issues in the negotiations, and Europe seems to have a similar intention. By contrast, Russia maintains that the negotiations with Iran must not include any new issues, and that the negotiating parties must reach agreement based on what was discussed in 2015. This disagreement between Iran and the west indicates that it may take the negotiating parties a longer time to reach an understanding about the 2015 version of the nuclear deal, or even to arrive at a new version.
2. The negotiating parties disagree over lifting sanctions on Iran:
Statements by US officials and counter-statements by Iranian officials show that the sanctions on Tehran will be the biggest obstacle to reaching agreement. Iran insists that sanctions imposed on it by the US must be lifted before the resumption of the negotiations. The US and European countries do not agree, and Biden has already stressed that the sanctions will not be lifted unless a comprehensive agreement is reached.
3. The deal's old version neither bind Iran to change its policies, nor does it bind the US to remove Iran's sanctions:
Even if the negotiating parties managed to revive the 2015 version of the nuclear deal, Iran will still be able to proceed with its destabilizing regional policies, which, consequently, means that the US will again resort to imposing sanctions. Unless Iran's regional interference is discussed on the negotiating table, the situation will stay the same.
It is noteworthy that the nuclear deal which was signed in 2015 did not completely forbid the US from imposing sanctions on Iran. Some of the old sanctions (notably those imposed on figures from the IRGC) were not lifted. In addition, Obama imposed new sanctions on Tehran after the deal was signed. A similar scenario is likely to occur if the 2015 was revived; US Foreign Secretary, Antony Blinken, already said that Biden's administration will retain some of the sanctions on Iran by way of leverage. At the end of the day, this means that any agreement on the basis of the 2015 deal will be fragile. In order for the agreement to have teeth, it needs to restrict Iran's nuclear and missile capabilities, and put an end to Tehran's interference in the affairs of the region's countries.
In conclusion, developments pertaining to the formation of the new Iranian team of negotiators show that Iran will be more stubborn in the next round of talks with the US. Iran will most probably adopt a policy of no concession by holding fast to the 2015 version of the deal so that no additional western demands should be discussed on the negotiating table. It is worth mentioning that Iran was playing for time so that it can gain more leverage; it was keen on proceeding with producing 60% enriched uranium in order to be able to bargain for a way out of any commitments as far as its regional policies and nuclear and missile activities are concerned.
