Russia no more a key player in Iran deal negotiations: Commentator

Hassan Beheshtipour told ILNA news sgency on Tuesday that a recent remark by Russia’s chief negotiator in the talks that the negotiations would restart in late November likely served one of two goals: either to present a positive outlook of the talks, signifying that they have not failed, or to portray Moscow as still relevant in the negotiations.

“The reality is that Russia no more has a decisive status in the negotiations,” Beheshtipoor said.

“Today, it’s only Tehran and Washington that play a decisive role in salvaging the nuclear deal, and Russia, China, and even the European troika are only facilitators.”

Beheshtipoor said the United States was now waiting to see how the ongoing protests in Iran would play out.

The Iran deal was struck in 2015. The original parties to the agreement were Iran, the United States, China, Russia, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. In 2018, the US unilaterally withdrew under the then President Donald Trump. Since 2021, when President Joe Biden took office, the US has been keen to return to the deal.

Tehran and Washington have since then been holding indirect talks on the deal’s revival. But the negotiations have stopped. The sides last held talks in Vienna in early August.

Late last month, Washington Free Beacon reported that officials from the Biden administration had told the House Foreign Affairs Committee in a closed-door briefing two weeks earlier that the talks had hit a “dead end.”