By Vestnik Kavkaza
Today the talks on the Iranian nuclear program continue in Almaty between representatives of Tehran and the six international mediators. Yesterday a source in the Iranian delegation stated that Iran was ready to consider a possibility of stop of enriching uranium in case of all international sanctions would be eliminated from the country. However, many experts doubt in effectiveness of these talks.
According to Sergei Mikheyev, director of the Institute for Caspian Cooperation, “the West totally mistrusts Iran, every single word of its authorities, and Iran does not totally trust the West. And there is an absolute total lack of trust between them. Some do not believe the others and their promises, and the others do not believe any words and promises of the former. The Iranians claim that their program is peaceful. The West and Israel say, "No, you're lying, your program is military, so we'll have to place pressure on you." This is the first issue. Secondly, of course, the logic of the Iranians is actually clear. It is clear that, for Russia, Iranian nuclear weapons would be unbeneficial. However, the logic of Iran is clear. In a world where the system of international law has almost no effect, the early bird catches the worm. That's it. Someone who has the power has resources. Nearby there is Israel, which has nuclear weapons, not signing any agreements. There is Pakistan, which also has nuclear weapons, and also ignores the agreements on nuclear weapons. In this situation, the Iranians argue in quite a simple way: it is enough to dare. That's it. People in North Korea think in the same way, as well as others. In fact, the same West, contributing to the destruction of the system of international law over the last 20 years and of a more or less systematic solution to various problems in the world, contributes to this approach by those countries that have some ambition. And for Iran, their nuclear program is really like an indication that their alternative model can succeed. Here is a competition of models. Iran is trying to show some alternative model of life that differs from the Western one. And it says: "But our model can also succeed. We would do well to prosper if you had not intervened". The West, of course, does not like such a situation: "What is it? In fact, we, the West, are the end of history. Our model is the only true one, and another model cannot succeed." Therefore, they are annoyed not only by Iran, but also by the China. According to the logic of the liberal ideologues, China should not even exist, it must be absolutely meaningless, worthless, incapable. And it suddenly shows such a growth. So I think that the Iranian issue is one part of the crisis of confidence and the crisis of ideology in the world at large.
If we talk about security issues in the region, of course, there are two points, they are mutually exclusive, I cannot speak about Russia, but, as I understand, Russia shares this opinion: on the one hand, Russia is against Iran's possession of nuclear weapons, and on the other hand, Russia is even more strongly against a solution to the Iranian problem by military means. Under any circumstances, at least at this point in history, Russia cannot support such a solution.”
Vardan Voskanyan, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Oriental Studies of Yerevan State University, believes that “we cannot expect any serious progress in the negotiations. But there is a very important point. Any negotiations mean that a war will not take place. That is, in this regard, the parties probably will feel the mood of each other, and Iran will still continue the program, as in fact, in such a deadlock in which Iran is now because of the West, it has no other choice. Either Iran should carry out major changes in terms of changing the current regime, or the Iranian government should take steps for self-preservation in this area. I think that before the presidential elections, which we expect in the summer, on June 14, Iran will do its best to try to come to some agreements on the penalties that now exist, that is, to remain at the same level. But Western countries, in turn, probably will take a pause, as they have during previous elections. The post-election situation in the country, at least, may slightly deteriorate, and they will try to use all kinds of technologies to implement the revolutions and post-election processes that are expected in Iran. The third lever to put pressure on Iran and in general on the current Iranian regime is an ethnic problem. This problem is often artificially inflated. This is due to the problem of so-called ethnic Azerbaijanis in Iran, Kurds, Arabs, and so on. If you look at the future, in my opinion, the prospect does not inspire any optimism. Real agreements will not be achieved, and the parties will remain in their original positions from which they started the negotiations.”
Sevak Sarukhanyan, director of the Center for Political Studies Research of Education Foundation "Noravank", thinks that “the rhetoric of the last period in Iran suggests that the authorities prior to the presidential period will not sign any agreements with the West. The recent celebration of the Islamic Revolution was marked by a tightening of anti-American and anti-Western rhetoric, which suggests that this is a power not prone to compromise either with the "group of six" or with the United States, despite the fact that the Obama administration offered to negotiate directly between Washington and Tehran, which is a new phenomenon in the past 32 years. As for the future, much depends on who will be the president of Iran. To date, there is a very strong coalition between the moderate conservative mayor of Tehran Ghalibaf, former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, who is now an adviser to the spiritual leader on foreign policy, and the former speaker of the Iranian Majlis, Adel. And this coalition aims to propose a single candidate. And if they propose Ghalibaf, the mayor of Tehran, who supports negotiating with Washington for compromise, or Ali Akbar Velayati, who, as many believe, last September twice travelled to Washington to meet with U.S. diplomats, the prospects for the negotiations will be a little more optimistic. As for the "group of six", I do not think that the "six" can come to a decision before Tehran and Washington at least partially resolve their relationship, because the format of the "six" and the whole situation is due to unresolved Iranian-American relations. If there is no progress in this relationship, then in the nuclear issue, too, there will be no positive progress, unfortunately. As for Armenia, Armenia will not really suffer from the Iranian sanctions, because we have trade relations with Iran mainly in the field of natural gas, and no sanctions are applied to this area. For Armenia, of course, it is not desirable that the conflict enters a military phase. Nevertheless, I must say that there are many people who believe that if in Iran there is a military conflict, Azerbaijan will attack Armenia, taking advantage of this. I believe that the biggest problem arises for Azerbaijan, because a million Turkic refugees will not come to Armenia, they will come to Azerbaijan, where there are at least linguistic conditions so that they can more easily arrange themselves in times of conflict. This is the first point. Secondly, Azerbaijan has more to do with Iran from the economic point of view than Armenia: the trade turnover is about $ 1.5 billion a year.”
