As President Joe Biden’s administration finalizes the nuclear deal with Iran, Russia is pushing to use the agreement’s provisions to bypass U.S. and Western sections placed in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine.
Russia is “insisting that its trade with Tehran be exempt from the destructive Western sanctions imposed on Moscow in response for invading its neighbor,” the U.S. journal Foreign Policy noted on Wednesday. “Moscow is seeking to use the Iran deal to shield itself from the full effect of Western sanctions,” the magazine added.
The fact that the deal negotiated by the Biden administration will allow Russians to use Iran as a “sanctions evasion hub” was confirmed by the chief Russian negotiator, Michael Ulyanov.
On Saturday, Richard Goldberg, senior advisor for the DC-based think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), said to Ulyanov on Twitter: “The deal you put together already guarantees Russia will have a sanctions evasion hub in Iran. You just want written assurances that the US will not impede that hub to embarrass the Biden administration and show Russia is not actually isolated.”
The top Russian negotiator agreed with the description of Iran as a future “sanctions evasion hub” for Kremlin, saying that this “interpretation of events is accurate.”
After 11 months of talks in the Austrian capital Vienna, President Biden is hoping to restore the 2015 nuclear deal with the Iranians.
Russia — along with the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and China — has been part of the European Union-sponsored negotiations. The Biden White House negotiated indirectly, as former President Donald Trump pulled the plug on the Obama-era deal in 2018.
The restored Obama-era deal will not only protect Russians from the full extent of the Ukraine sanctions, but it will also shore up Iran’s ability to support international terrorism. The circulated draft of the new Iran nuclear agreement suggests that President Biden will take off the regime’s military arms, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), from the U.S. terror list, reversing a 2019 decision by the Trump administration.
These details of the proposed deal emerged from a letter addressed to President Biden by a bipartisan group of House members. “Lifting, waiving, or rescinding terrorism-related sanctions will violate his previous commitment to Congress,” the copy obtained by the U.S. news website Jewish Insider said.
The letter dated March 10, and signed by several U.S. lawmakers, including 12 Democrats, noted:
Among other issues, we are highly concerned about reports indicating the potential lifting of the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)1 and of the sanctions placed on members of the office of the Supreme Leader.Without adequately addressing Iran’s role as the world’s leading state-sponsor of terror — which was noticeably absent from the 2015 JCPOA — and simultaneously providing billions of dollars in sanctions relief, the United States would be providing a clear path for Iranian proxies to continue fueling terrorism.”
The lawmakers concluded that “from what we currently understand, it is hard to envision supporting an agreement along the lines being publicly discussed.”
Having outwitted the Biden negotiator in Vianna talks, the Iranians are haggling for further concessions. On Thursday, Iran’s top security official, General Ali Shamkhani, called on Washington to agree to Tehran’s unspecified “principled demands.”
The Associated Press reported the Iranian general’s latest remarks:
In recent days, Western diplomats have signaled the talks had reached their conclusion, laying the final decision with Iran. Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of the country’s powerful Supreme National Security Council, wrote on Twitter early Thursday trying to instead blame America for the deadlock.The “US approach to Iran’s principled demands, coupled with its unreasonable offers and unjustified pressure to hastily reach an agreement, show that US isn’t interested in a strong deal that would satisfy both parties,” Shamkhani wrote in multiple languages. “Absent US political decision, the talks get knottier by the hour.” (…)
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi backed his general on Twitter, saying: “The government is doing negotiations in the way of the supreme leader’s framework and has not and will not retreat from any red lines which were announced.”
Reports suggest that the Biden White House concessions have far exceeded the Iranian expectations. Earlier this week, Russian envoy Ulyanov admitted that Iran, backed by Moscow and Beijing, out-negotiated the Biden negotiating team led by Robert Malley. “Iran got much more than it could expect,” Ulyanov said. “Our Chinese friends were also very efficient and useful as co-negotiators., adding that on “many, many points though the joint efforts we succeeded.”
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