Iran’s Zarif Rules Out Renegotiating N-Deal with Biden

Iran will not renegotiate the nuclear accord it reached with world powers, its foreign minister said, drawing a line in the sand ahead of Joe Biden’s assumption of the U.S. presidency. By walking out of an agreement anchored in a United Nations resolution, the U.S. is not in a position to impose conditions, Mohammad Javad Zarif told a virtual Rome conference on foreign affairs on Thursday.
“The United States must cease its violations of international law, it doesn’t require any negotiations,” Zarif said. “We will not renegotiate a deal which we negotiated. The deal was about give and take, it wasn’t about one side asking and the other side giving.”

President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the accord in 2018 and imposed crippling sanctions on Iran, in an unsuccessful attempt to force it to enter talks on a tougher pact. Biden has said he’ll rejoin the deal if Iran also returns to full compliance, and then push to broaden it.

In addition to insisting on the removal of sanctions, Iran has demanded economic compensation for the devastation they’ve wrought on the country. On Thursday, Zarif signaled a price tag when he observed that the nuclear deal “is not a revolving door.” “It’s not that you can come in, impose restrictions on others, benefit from the privileges of membership and then all of a sudden decide to leave and inflict US$250 billion of damage on the Iranian people,” he said.

On Wednesday, Iran gave the Biden administration just weeks to make a diplomatic breakthrough by giving final approval to a bill compelling President Hassan Rohani to end international nuclear inspections unless the U.S. lifts key sanctions by February. The new legislation also says Iran will immediately take measures to start producing 20% enriched uranium for peaceful purposes and increase its stockpile of the fissile material, potentially reducing the time Iran needs to make preparations to acquire a weapon. It was promoted by hardliners who opposed the nuclear agreement with the West.

Zarif -- Iran’s lead negotiator on the pact -- said his government did not like the law. “We will implement it because it is the law of the land” but it is not “irreversible,” he said.

In related remarks, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday said Iran was “desperately” signaling its willingness to return to the negotiating table to get sanctions relief, but warned against going easy on Tehran in such talks. In a virtual address to the IISS Manama Dialogue, a Middle East security summit, Pompeo defended Washington’s “maximum-pressure” campaign, which opponents have widely criticized as failing to change Tehran’s behavior while increasing hardships for Iran’s people. “We know our campaign is working because now the Iranians are desperately signaling their willingness to return to the negotiating table to get sanctions relief,” Pompeo said. He did not elaborate on what signals Washington has seen. Pompeo warned against going easy on Tehran.

“In the event that they come to the table, and are only willing to talk about turning off a few (nuclear) centrifuges for a few months or a few years, the world should not find that satisfactory. ... We ought to not cut short negotiation,” he said.

President-elect Joe Biden, who is set to take office on Jan. 20, has said he will return the United States to the Obama-era deal if Iran resumes compliance with the agreement.

The top U.S. envoy on Iran, Elliott Abrams, made similar comments on Thursday, saying Iran would be unlikely to retaliate over the assassination of a prominent nuclear scientist before Biden’s inauguration in case it jeopardizes any future sanctions relief. - Reuters, Bloomberg