Iranian officials signaled they might be willing to return to nuclear negotiations under the second Trump administration after meeting with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi in Tehran last week.
At a press conference on Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said Grossi’s visit was “fruitful and good,” resulting in some “good agreements” with the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency.
Baqaei said some “ambiguities and questions” were covered during talks with Grossi – an allusion to the IAEA director’s longstanding complaints about Iranian non-compliance with inspection requirements. Grossi warned ahead of his visit to Tehran that time was running out for a “diplomatic solution” to these issues.
“What was obvious is Iran’s positive approach and goodwill in addressing the debates between Iran and the IAEA. We are trying to let the IAEA be able to do its job without destructive and wicked pressures from certain parties,” Baqaei said.
At this point, the Iranian spokesman’s sneer about “destructive and wicked third parties” could apply to almost every Western nation involved in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, since all of them have blasted the Iranians for interfering with IAEA inspections.
The loudest critics of Iran at the moment are not officials from the fading Biden administration, but rather France, Germany, and the United Kingdom – collectively known as the “E3” – which are pushing for a resolution against Iran at the IAEA board meeting in Vienna this week. Iran has threatened to retaliate against any such resolution by further reducing its already unsatisfying cooperation with nuclear inspectors.
Baghaei said he hoped all parties would “allow the issues between Iran and the agency to continue in a technical way and away from political pressures and considerations,” an unsubtle threat to the E3 nations to back down from their resolution demands.
Grossi issued a joint statement with his Iranian hosts calling for “bilateral interactions in a spirit of collaboration” to achieve “full conformity” with Iran’s obligations to the IAEA.
Grossi said it was an “important step” for him to visit Iran’s nuclear facilities at Fordo and Natanz, where some of the thorniest issues of Iranian non-compliance have arisen. He said visiting the sites in person would help him develop “a full picture of the evolution of the program.”
After meeting with Grossi, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran was “willing to negotiate based on our national interest and our inalienable rights, but NOT ready to negotiate under pressure and intimidation.”
“Iran has never left the negotiation table on its peaceful nuclear program,” he insisted.
The head of Iran’s atomic energy agency, Mohammad Eslami, repeated his threat that “any resolution against Iran’s nuclear program will be met with Iran’s immediate response.”
Iran could not be signaling more strongly that it will only continue to play ball with the IAEA if the E3 resolution threat is withdrawn. This could all be a prelude to bringing pressure to bear against President-elect Donald Trump, who withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal during his first term. The U.N. and E3 might be cross with Iran right now, but their ire could swiftly turn against Trump if he is perceived as the major obstacle to continued negotiations.
Iran might be more willing to negotiate next year because it reportedly lost one of its key secret nuclear weapons research facilities to Israeli airstrikes on October 25. According to both U.S. and Israeli intelligence sources, the destroyed Taleghan-2 facility at Parchin was crucial to designing the explosive devices needed for detonating a nuclear warhead. The facility was supposedly deactivated in 2003 but recently resumed operations.
Iran constantly insists it is not trying to develop nuclear weapons, but Iranian noncompliance with IAEA investigators tells a different story. At the very least, Tehran wants to preserve the threat that it could quickly finish enriching the huge stockpile of uranium it has already enriched far beyond any civilian application and swiftly produce functional nuclear bombs. The very nuclear weapons program that Iran publicly denies pursuing is the major reason the U.N. and European powers ignore Iran’s antics to keep negotiations alive.
Iran clearly wants to keep the threat of nuclear weapons development on the table as retaliation for the proposed IAEA resolution this week. Trump said he withdrew from Barack Obama’s nuclear deal because Iran was cheating, while his critics say Iran stepped up its cheating after Trump withdrew from the deal.
The Biden administration desperately wanted to revive the nuclear deal, but were never able to get close to resuming those negotiations due to Iranian intransigence, which would seem to validate Trump’s position. Biden would have given Tehran almost anything to revive the deal, but Iran kept insisting on concessions that not even Joe Biden was willing to make.
At a press conference in September, then-candidate Trump said he was ready to make a “great deal” with Iran if he had been re-elected in 2020, and was ready to talk to the Iranians again in 2025.
“Sure, I would do that. We have to make a deal, because the consequences are impossible. We have to make a deal,” Trump said. Almost everything Iran is doing right now indicates it sees little value in talking to outgoing President Joe Biden and intends to drive a hard bargain when it starts negotiating with the second Trump administration. Iran does not want to be censured by the IAEA because it expects the U.N. and European powers to help it pressure Trump for a deal next year.
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