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VIENNA -- Top negotiators in renewed talks to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal indicated Sunday that they are optimistic about the possibility of reaching an agreement to impose limits on Tehran's uranium enrichment.

We stand 5 minutes or 5 seconds from the finish line, Russian Ambassador Mikhail Ulyanov told reporters outside Viennas Palais Coburg, four days into the talks. He said there are 3 or 4 issues left to be resolved.

They are sensitive, especially for Iranians and Americans, Ulyanov said. I cannot guarantee, but the impression is that we are moving in the right direction.

Enrique Mora, the European Unions top negotiator, also said he is absolutely optimistic about the talks progress so far.

We are advancing, and I expect we will close the negotiations soon, he told Iranian media.

Negotiators from Iran, the U.S. and the European Union resumed indirect talks over Tehrans tattered nuclear deal Thursday after a months-long standstill in negotiations.

Since the deals de facto collapse, Iran has been running advanced centrifuges and rapidly growing its stockpile of enriched uranium.

Iran struck the nuclear deal in 2015 with the U.S., France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China. The deal saw Iran agree to limit its enrichment of uranium under the watch of U.N. inspectors in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

Then U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the U.S. out of the accord in 2018, saying he would negotiate a stronger deal, but that didnt happen. Iran began breaking the deals terms a year later.

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Negotiators optimistic about progress on Iran nuclear deal - ABC News

With war in Ukraine grinding well past the four month mark, on July 19th, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a trip to Iran, where he received a hearty endorsement for his violent incursion into Eastern Europe. In Iran, Mr. Putin met with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei offered not just verbal support of the war, but also agreed to provide as many as 300 drones to Russia, according to U.S. intelligence. This partnership, which had existed in a more tentative form before the war, has quickly solidified, with Russia finding itself increasingly isolated from the global economy, as Iran has been for years. Iran offers Mr. Putin a chance to form an economic partnership and learn from a state that has experience functioning under severe sanctions.

Khamenei, taking a much more decisive stance than Russias fair-weather Chinese partners, told Mr. Putin that War is a violent and difficult endeavor, and the Islamic Republic is not at all happy that people are caught up in war. But in the case of Ukraine, if you had not taken the helm, the other side would have done so and initiated a war. Behind these sentiments is a strengthening bond between the two nations, commercially and diplomatically. Ali Vaez, the International Crisis Groups Iran director, described the necessity both sides feel to pursue linkages, saying Russia and Iran still dont trust one another, but now they need each other more than ever. This is no longer a partnership of choice, but an alliance out of necessity. Yuri Ushakov, the Russian foreign policy advisor, told reporters in Moscow that the contact with Khamenei is very important. A trusting dialogue has developed between them on the most important issues on the bilateral and international agenda.

Oil remains an important part of the Russia-Iran relationship. The increase in oil prices due to the war in Ukraine could give Iran more leverage to push for concessions from Washington in negotiations regarding the renewal of a 2015 nuclear deal, where Iran agreed to slow nuclear development in return for eased sanctions. Russias massive energy corporation, Gazprom, looking to keep a foothold in the energy markets, has signed a nonbinding $40 billion agreement to help develop Iranian gas and oil fields. However, oil could become a source of contention, as Western sanctions have forced Russian producers to shift towards Eastern markets, who have traditionally bought from Iran. In particular, Russias highly discounted gas sales to Beijing have significantly reduced Iranian crude exports to China. This is a hard blow to the Iranians, leaving nearly 40 million barrels of their oil on tankers in Asiatic seas, looking for a buyer. This will be an important development to watch, because as Russia lowers prices and finds new customers in order to sell around sanctions, they are increasingly edging allies Iran and Venezuela out of the market. A Canada-based political analyst has pointed out that Iran is at a major economic and political disadvantage in the post-Ukraine war environment.

The military relationship between the two countries seems to be going strong. A White House disclosure reported that during Putins visit to Iran, he implored Iran to help the Russians replenish their stocks of armed and unarmed surveillance drones. Top U.S. officials have said that Iran is willing to provide as many as 300 remotely piloted aircraft and will start training Russian troops on how to use them shortly. This collaboration has been in the making for months, with a Russian delegation visiting Iranian airfields twice in the early summer of 2022. According to U.S. satellite imagery, Russians reviewed Shahed-191 and Shahed-129 drones. Iran has extensive experience developing and flying drones. In the past, theyve supplied drone technology to Houthi rebels in Yemen, Shiite militias in Iraq, and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

On the war front in Ukraine, particularly in the Donbas, drones are essential to success, as they have taken on a large role in modern warfare, in insurgency, counterterrorism, and even conventional-style operations. Samuel Bendett, a specialist on Russian drones, reports that while the Russians still have drones, they dont have all the types they need. Throughout the fighting, Russia has gone through most of its precision-guided weapons and the drones it uses to help guide long-range artillery strike targets. It has also lost dozens of reconnaissance drones and has struggled to build large quantities of armed drones and remotely piloted aircraft that can fly for long periods of time. In what has become essentially an artillery war, small unmanned aircraft play a critical role in Russias ability to target Ukrainian forces and report coordinates to longer-range weapons. The drone sales have not yet been publicly confirmed, but will represent a major shift once they are completed, according to P.W. Singer, a New America strategist: Russia is used to selling military gear to nations like Iran, not the other way around.

As the war in Ukraine grinds on, Russias relationship with Iran will most certainly continue evolving. Seeing as President Biden visited Israel and various Arab countries around the same time that Mr. Putin visited Tehran, it is clear that two opposing blocs have been forming in the Middle East. However, most see the Iran-Russia axis as a partnership formed out of necessity by two entities that are ultimately commercial competitors. Abdolrasool Divsallar, a visiting professor of Middle Eastern studies at the University Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, told DW that a major part of Irans motive to work with Russia is driven by its urgent economic needs and lack of alternatives. Iran cannot dismiss its relations with Eastern powers like Russia, as long as there are no options in the West. Experts are divided over whether opening up Western markets to Iran will weaken its devotion to Russia, perhaps depriving Mr. Putins regime of a supporter in their crusade to burn Ukrainian democracy to the ground. It will be up to the U.S. and NATO allies to decide based upon their read of Irans broader intentions: will they concede on nuclear restrictions and human rights demands and allow Iran into Western oil markets desperate for relief from sky-high prices, or will they adhere to a policy of isolation?

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Sanctioned States Unite: Iran And Russia Forge New Partnerships In Oil and Drones - The Organization for World Peace

A key reason for Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, to visit Taiwan last week (and before that Ukraine) is her determination to expand the contours of her legacy to include dealing with America's major foreign policy rivals, Russia and China. Her primary motivation, however, is linked to her loyalty to the governing Democratic Party and her determination to prop up Joe Biden's presidency.

We may, thus, soon see Ms Pelosi land in Tehran to pave the way for a grand deal between her country and Iran. But in that case, she will need to avoid boasting about "democracy standing up to autocracy". After all, an agreement with Tehran would be a deal with the ultimate autocratic regime.

Ms Pelosis incentive isn't just challenging what the US deems to be autocracies running Russia and China. Sure, landing in Taiwan angered Beijing and raised concerns of military escalation. And sure, American strategic interests were key considerations for the Speaker. But was her trip really to pre-empt China's feared invasion of the island, or to draw Beijing into a trap?

Neither reason seems compelling. Rather, the visit had the flavour of political manoeuvring.

The obsessive media and public attention given to the trip had caused a stir in the financial markets, but the fundamental misreading of the situation may have been the main reason for this. From the outset, there have been no indications of a strategic US decision to begin a standoff with China. Logic also suggests the visit would not have taken place had there not been a minimum level of understanding about it between Mr Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, with the two leaders having spoken on the phone for nearly two hours on July 28 less than a week before Ms Pelosi's trip.

A screen displays images of Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President JoeBiden, while broadcasting news about their recent call at a shopping mall in Hong Kong last month. Reuters

The ideological battle is hugely influential, but it is not the basis of the US-China rivalry

So far, the visit appears to have served both leaders' agendas, for it has allowed them to reassert their traditional positions in an expedient political dress rehearsal. It can be seen as a step to shore up Mr Biden's credibility as well as that of the Democratic Party on foreign policy issues, without paying a high cost in the short term. It certainly enabled Mr Xi to reassert Beijings "red lines" on Taiwan, including its categorical rejection of the island's independence as part of its One China principle, yet without being dragged into a military confrontation that Beijing wants to avoid. Certain sections of China's elite are pushing for a confrontation with the US, and they see Ms Pelosis visit as a provocation requiring a response beyond military exercises. But Mr Xi is resisting these voices, opting for a restrained approach.

That doesnt mean accidents or missteps can be ruled out. The cross-Strait issue is now bigger than both countries' leaderships. In the Chinese political system, moreover, the Communist Party collectively makes decisions.

So far, the co-existence between democracies and autocracies as subjective as both terms are has trumped the ideological struggle between them.

The Wests battle with Russia, for instance, is not a confrontation between two political systems, despite Ms Pelosi and others framing it as such. It is essentially a battle between the Nato military alliance and Moscow. Likewise, in its supposed ideological battle with China, the US is actually more worried about the Asian powers rise, which Washington sees as a threat to its global primacy. Successive US administrations have, thus, resolved to contain this rise. No doubt, the ideological battle is hugely influential, but it is not the basis of their rivalry.

Iran is another example of the duplicity in America's "democracy versus autocracy" articulation.

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani, right, is leaving the Coburg Palais, the venue of the JCPOA in Vienna last week. AFP

More from Raghida Dergham

Even though it is run by an autocratic regime (and an ideologically expansionist one), neither Mr Biden nor Ms Pelosi would have any problem securing a nuclear agreement with Iran without challenging the regime on its regional record or ideology. Indeed, there is little room for Ms Pelosi to raise the "defence of democracy against autocracy" banner in this context, for the Democratic administration would be doing the opposite: empowering an autocratic regime.

The party will insist that a deal with Tehran serves US interests, defuses a potential nuclear standoff, and avoids military confrontation that the American people do not want. However, it is just as duty-bound to acknowledge that lifting economic sanctions a condition set by the Iranian regime in the nuclear negotiations would provide Tehran with the resources it needs to spread its autocratic ideology across the Middle East.

The Iranian regime recently indicated that it is willing to give up its demand that the US remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from its terror list. This suggests it is seeking a formula to conclude a nuclear deal. It has determined that there are creative ways to untie the knot around the IRGC, which is indispensable to the regimes domestic and foreign policies, for it has no qualms about outsmarting western democracies while benefiting from their capitalist features.

Immaterial of how the talks pan out, the time has probably come for US administrations to stop claiming that the wars they have waged in their recent history have been primarily to serve their ideological purposes. Such duplicity has and will continue to cost America, no matter the benefits to its military-industrial complex.

Published: August 07, 2022, 2:00 PM

Link:
After Taiwan, will Pelosi visit Iran? - The National

Tehran: In an attempt to uphold the Hijab and chastity laws in the country, Irans Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance has barred women from appearing in ads.

According to Radio Free Europe, the government of Iran has sent a letter to all advertising companies that states women are no longer permitted to star in any type of advertisement or commercial. Local legislation also established prohibiting the instrumental use of women, men, and children.

This move from the Government of Iran comes a few days after an advertisement had sparked controversy across the country. In the ad, a woman could be seen sporting an improper Hijab and biting into a Magnum ice cream.

The advertisement had left Iranian clerics outraged who demanded that the ice cream manufacturer Domino, be sued. Officials had retaliated by declaring that the advertisement was against public decency and an insult to womens morals.

According to the letter addressed to advertising firms by Irans Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, the ban is per Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution rulings.

For the uninitiated, since the Islamic revolution of 1979, the Hijab has been mandatory in Iran. However, recently, new social media campaigns against Hijab enforcement have been on the rise in the country. Women in Iran have risked arrest and punishment by removing their headscarves in public to protest imposed clothing regulations, in recent years.

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Iran bans women from appearing in ads, heres why - The Siasat Daily

Bou Habib says Lebanon has not been under pressure to demarcate its maritime borders, adding that Beirut is holding the negotiations through a US mediary.

Iranian officials have visited Lebanon twice but did not talk about this issue with me or any other official. The Officials did not even mention anything about doing or not doing this, never. Even the Iranian ambassador has not talked about this [the negotiations]. Hezbollah, which has strong ties with Iran, also says negotiations are your job. You go and see what you agree upon. We do neither support you, nor oppose you, he says.

Beirut and Tel Aviv are discussing the fate of the disputed Karish natural gas field in the Mediterranean to end tensions after Israeli moved a drillship to begin extraction of gas from the field.

Hezbollah had earlier warned that it is ready to take any necessary step to protect the natural riches of Lebanon.

The negotiations on Karish field have so far produced no result. Bou Habib, however, expressed optimism that they could lead to an agreement by September.

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Lebanon FM Says Iran Not Interfering In Negotiations With Israel Over Gas Field - Iran Front Page - Iran Front Page - IFP News