The United States ruled on Sunday “irrelevant” to new Russian demands that could delay the success of negotiations aimed at saving the 2015 Iranian nuclear agreement.
As optimistic statements were made about an imminent agreement in Vienna, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov threw a chill on Saturday by mentioning “problems on the Russian side”.
During a press conference, he demanded Washington’s “written guarantee” that the sanctions adopted against his country since the invasion of Ukraine would not affect its cooperation with Tehran.
“The sanctions adopted against Russia have nothing to do with the Iranian nuclear agreement,” retorted the head of American diplomacy, Antony Blinken, questioned from Moldova on Sunday by the CBS channel.
“The two things are totally different,” so the Russian request is “off topic,” he added.
For him, Russia has an “interest [à ce] whether Iran is not capable of having a nuclear weapon or does not have the capacity to produce a weapon very quickly” and “that interest remains valid, regardless of our relationship with Russia since its invasion of Ukraine “.
The sanctions adopted against Russia have nothing to do with the Iranian nuclear agreement.
The United States and its Western allies have adopted a series of punitive measures against Russia since the entry of its forces into Ukraine on February 24: exclusion of Russian banks from the financial system, freezing of the assets of the Russian Central Bank, restriction of imports, sanctions against President Vladimir Putin, his relatives and many oligarchs…
According to Sergei Lavrov, Russia wants to be sure that these measures do not affect its “trade, economic, investment and technical-military cooperation with Iran”, especially if this country benefits from an easing of the sanctions targeting it in under a new international agreement.
“Real progress”
Concluded by Iran on one side and the United States, China, France, the United Kingdom, Russia and Germany on the other, the 2015 agreement is supposed to prevent Iran from to equip with the atomic bomb, even if this country has always denied such an intention.
He had allowed the lifting of international economic sanctions against Tehran, in exchange for strict limits on its nuclear program.
But the United States withdrew from it in 2018 under the administration of Donald Trump and reinstated the punitive measures that are suffocating the Iranian economy. In response, Tehran has largely freed itself from restrictions on its nuclear activities.
Once in the White House, Democrat Joe Biden wanted to get back into the deal, but indirect negotiations were difficult.
Antony Blinken, echoing the negotiators, said on Sunday that “real progress” had been made in recent weeks and that an agreement was “close”.
But “there remain one or two very difficult subjects” to settle, he added, without giving details.
In parallel with the efforts led by the negotiators in Vienna, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, met on Saturday in Tehran with Iranian officials. Although they agreed on a mechanism to settle outstanding issues, Mr. Grossi, back in Vienna, remained cautious for the future.