Saeed Khatibzadeh, the Iranian regime’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said Tehran would return to the nuclear talks with “no preconditions.” His remarks are part of the regime’s duplicity, fearing possible unilateral international actions against Tehran’s nuclear extortion.
Days before Saeed Khatibzadeh’s remarks, his boss, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, said: “I told the mediators if America’s intentions are serious, then a serious indication was needed” should give the regime at least “$10 billion of blocked money.”
The U.S. administration rapidly rejected this demand. Even Germany, which has been trying to restore the nuclear deal, rejected the regime’s demands. “If here new conditions are being set by Iran for talks to be resumed, then we reject that,” a German foreign ministry said on October 4, according to Reuters.
On September 12, Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), struck a deal with the regime allowing the IAEA inspectors to service monitoring equipment. This agreement happened on the eve of a meeting of the IAEA’s Board of governors, which could have resulted in the most serious measures against the regime’s provocative actions.
But on September 26, the IAEA reported that the regime did not allow the “agency access to the TESA Karaj centrifuge component manufacturing workshop,” which was “contrary to the agreed terms of the joint statement issued on September 12.”
In other words, when Tehran felt its provocative steps could have serious repercussions for it, it resorted to duplicity. Unfortunately, the U.N. nuclear watchdog and the western powers fell for this tactic, allowing the regime to dodge possible consequences for its actions, yet continue its race toward an atomic bomb. The regime had never intended to stop its nuclear program, even when it had signed the famous Iran nuclear deal with world powers in 2015.
In 2015, the P5+1 signed a nuclear deal with the Iranian regime, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The JCPOA lacked the requirements of an international treaty and, as warned by the Iranian Resistance at that time, couldn’t “neither block the mullahs’ pathways to deception nor their access to a nuclear bomb.”
JCPOA had many loopholes and failed to address the Iranian regime’s other malign activities, including its terrorist activities in the region. In 2018, the United States pulled out of the JCPOA, citing the regime’s violations of the “spirit” of the deal. The regime quickly began a nuclear extortion campaign.
Unlike what the JCPOA’s supporters claimed that the deal had been able to curb the regime’s nuclear activities, Tehran quickly breached its commitments under the JCPOA terms. In less than two years, the regime rapidly enriched uranium even higher than 20%. In August 2021, Tehran announced it had started to enrich uranium up to 60% purity. Later the IAEA reported Tehran’s progress in producing uranium metal, solely used to develop nuclear weapons.
The regime’s provocative steps underline that it has never stopped its projects to acquire a nuclear bomb, and it has used negotiations to kill time, and regime officials have confirmed this fact.
“They thought that they won the negotiation. But we had a countermeasure, and while we proceeded with the case, they didn’t achieve what they planned for. We did not become trapped in the enrichment deadlock,” said Ali Akbar Salehi, former head of the regime’s Atomic Energy Organization in 2020.
“During those years, a good portion of time, we wanted to disrupt our adversaries’ assessment. To make this happen, we needed more time. We had to show our capabilities in practice so they could see them. The 20% enrichment couldn’t be done overnight. It required some work. Fordow and Arak [nuclear sites] needed some work. So this required some time to achieve. Therefore, we bought some time. But when they were ready to negotiate a deal, the negotiation process expedited,” said Ali Bagheri Kani, the current deputy FM and potential negotiator with the world powers, in an interview in 2019.
Thus, the recent statement by Khatibzadeh could be described as a part of the regime’s cat and mouse game with world powers and in line with its nuclear extortion. The regime would never abandon its nuclear weapons program, as acquiring it could prolong its medieval rule.
After the regime’s repeated deceptive steps, the world powers should come to their senses and adopt a firm policy toward the regime. Khatibzadeh’s remarks also show that once world powers merely approach “firmness” in dealing with the regime, Tehran would be forced to stop its nuclear extortion campaign. Negotiations with the regime are like fitting a square peg into a round hole. The regime only understands the language of firmness, and this would certainly curb the regime’s nuclear programs.
