On the results of the fifth round of talks on Iranian nuclear program

By Vestnik Kavkaza

On June 20 the fifth round of talks between the six international mediators (the U.S., Russia, Britain, Germany, France, China) and Iran ended. The negotiating process is largely influenced by the aggravation of the situation in Iraq, where an extremist organization, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has taken control of significant territories in the country. As a result of the fifth round the parties have managed to achieve progress in the development of the text of an agreement, guaranteeing the peaceful nature of the Iran's nuclear program and  lifting sanctions against Iran. The parties have still a lot to work on in anticipation of July 20, the deadline for developing the final agreement.

A senior researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Professor Vladimir Sazhin, and the CEO of the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Iran, Razhab Safarov, have commented on the progress made in the negotiations.

Vladimir Sazhin spoke about the issue of lifting the sanctions. "In the world there are some forces that do not accept the existence of a nuclear program in the Islamic Republic of Iran. First of all, I am talking about Israel and some groups in the United States. They claim that any agreement with Iran giving it the right to develop nuclear technology is already a big mistake. Of course, it is not so. Certainly any country, especially a country which signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, a IAEA member has the right to develop its nuclear technology, but only under strict supervision of the IAEA. The most difficult problem which, as I understand, has not yet been solved is the problem of the elimination of sanctions. As you know, the November interim agreement is currently in place. It came into effect on January 20 and will end on July 20. In this period of time, Iran has worked hard to make its nuclear program transparent. It should be noted that the IAEA has no problems with Iran. Iran fulfils everything that is required of it. In their turn, the Americans are unfreezing assets in increments of 400-600 million dollars, based on the assumption that 4 billion and 200 million dollars of frozen Iranian assets will be unfrozen in 6 months. That is, the Americans are also fulfilling their obligations in this regard," the expert said.

Sazhin said that the key issue is the formal lifting of sanctions: "The most important thing is that those most severe sanctions, which were introduced in 2012 by the United States, the European Union and many other countries that joined them later, have not been formally lifted - neither sanctions related to reducing oil purchases from Iran nor sanctions on insuring oil ships. Iran also remains outside the international banking system. However, I must say that recently the Americans - the main initiators of these sanctions - have started to turn a blind eye to all violations of these sanctions by many countries. But to repeat myself, the sanctions have not been formally lifted. This process, the mechanism for lifting the sanctions, has not been developed yet. The Iranians, of course, say that once the agreement is signed all the sanctions will be eliminated. Of course, no one is going to do that. It means that there must be some grace period, some program of the gradual elimination of sanctions, etc. There is one more issue: Iran requires all sanctions to be lifted, including those that are not related to Iran's nuclear program. As you know, various sanctions have been active against Iran for 34 years. Iran demands that all sanctions be removed. Their opponents from the U.S. and Western Europe say that they will only talk about those sanctions against Iran that are related to its nuclear program. Thus, there are many topics for discussion."

Razhab Safarov said that this round of negotiations played a crucial role in the negotiating process: "Many people in the world awaited this particular round of negotiations, because it was to define the direction of development of the situation around Iran, around possible agreements with Iran. In reality, no one knew what kind of results the negotiators would achieve. Prior to this round, as you recall, the president of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, said with great optimism that an agreement between Iran and the six mediators on the principal issues of the negotiation process had almost been reached. This was an inspiration to many. In fact, the fifth round has become one of the crucial rounds in the negotiating process. During the five days of the negotiations it has become clear whether there will be an agreement or not, whether it will be signed before July 20 or whether the parties will ask for an extension on the fundamental issues of the agenda."

The expert noted the importance of the outcome of the negotiations: "An essential agreement has been reached in Vienna last week. It can be considered a point of no return in the negotiating process. What does this mean? For the first time, the parties had an agreement and common understanding on the main points of the draft text of the final agreement. A common foundation, a vector of the agreement were agreed upon. Most importantly, the working title, the table of contents and the main content of the document, expected by a great number of people, have been developed. There is a foundation, a platform which can serve the development of the negotiating process. The second outcome of the round was the agreement among the parties that a prolongation of the negotiating process was not necessary, that it is possible to finish by the deadline for the submission of the agreement, July 20. The third very important result of the negotiation process was the fact that the parties have preserved their willingness to sign the agreement by July 20.