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Iran Responds to European Nuclear Proposal: ‘Yes, but...’

Iranian permanent representative to the international organizations in Vienna, Mohsen Naziri Asl, leaves the Palais Coburg where closed-door nuclear talks take place in Vienna, Austria, Friday, Aug. 5, 2022. (AP)
Iranian permanent representative to the international organizations in Vienna, Mohsen Naziri Asl, leaves the Palais Coburg where closed-door nuclear talks take place in Vienna, Austria, Friday, Aug. 5, 2022. (AP)
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Iran Responds to European Nuclear Proposal: ‘Yes, but...’

Iranian permanent representative to the international organizations in Vienna, Mohsen Naziri Asl, leaves the Palais Coburg where closed-door nuclear talks take place in Vienna, Austria, Friday, Aug. 5, 2022. (AP)
Iranian permanent representative to the international organizations in Vienna, Mohsen Naziri Asl, leaves the Palais Coburg where closed-door nuclear talks take place in Vienna, Austria, Friday, Aug. 5, 2022. (AP)

Two weeks have passed since EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell presented his amended “plan” for the 2015 nuclear deal to the parties concerned. The final text, submitted on July 26 by Borrell’s deputy Enrique Mora to these parties as they were gathered in Palais Coburg, cannot be renegotiated.

The Iranians and Americans held indirect negotiations during four days of these two weeks, but on Monday, Borrell explained that “everything negotiable has been negotiated.”

Experience with the negotiations between Washington and Tehran has doubtlessly left the EU High Representative wary and cautious.

For their part, Tehran-affiliated media outlets responded to the statements and made it clear that Iran insists on conducting a “comprehensive review” of the proposal and its right to make adjustments and changes to the proposal, as its negotiator in Vienna has already stressed.

The Iranians also insist they refuse to confine themselves to a deadline because their ultimate goal is “safeguarding Iranian interests.”

As such, Iran almost immediately hit back at Mora, who had closed the doors to any suggestions, saying that what is needed is “a yes or no response. You cannot agree to the articles mentioned on page twenty and reject those on page fifty.” The proposal is twenty-five pages long.

In any case, Mora said he expects a response in “a few weeks,” and some sources from Paris have suggested the response could come this month.

“Yes… but” sums up the positions expressed by Iranian officials.

The US and EU, meanwhile, have said they are ready to sign the EU proposal. While European sources have said that they are confident Iran will sign the European proposal in the end, citing an array of reasons. They believe some minor changes will be made and that it could take some time because Iran does not want to show that it acquiesced to international pressure.

They also believe that Iran will not sign before ensuring that the interests of the country are guaranteed and that the top brass wants to show that it forced Washington and its western partners to accept better terms than those obtained by the team led by then President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif when the deal was first signed in 2015.

However, it seems that Tehran did not receive what it had demanded in terms of the Revolutionary Guards being removed from the US terror list and that only financial compensation has been agreed to as a deterrent to Washington pulling out.

According to official French sources, however, the westerners did make three significant concessions to Tehran: first, they agreed to the exclusion of any new parties in the negotiations for nuclear deals, leaving out the Gulf states despite their constant demands to be included. Second, Iran’s ballistic missile program was not part of the negotiations. Third, Iran’s destabilizing role in the region was not put on the table.

Iranian officials have said that Tehran provided “initial responses” and that, after thorough discussions of the European proposal, it will put additional proposals and adjustments forward, meaning that we could see additional rounds of negotiations, regardless of assurances to the contrary given by the Europeans and Americans.

In any case, after overcoming or eliminating some of the obstacles of the past, one issue continues to threaten to dash the hopes of those seeking a swift return to the 2015 agreement; Tehran has failed to fully cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency on its three undeclared nuclear sites where nuclear activity was detected by the UN agency between 2003 and 2004.

Strong doubts remain regarding this issue, with some observers worried these sites could be part of a military nuclear program. So far, this remains a thorn in Iran’s plans, especially since the IAEA issued a statement clarifying that Iran was not cooperating with it and that this could lead, at some point, to the issue being taken to the UN Security Council once again.

The Iranians accuse the IAEA of “politicizing” the matter and acquiescing to US and Israeli pressure. Tehran wants to resolve this matter permanently, and it believes, without a doubt, that the time is right to do so.

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was quick to complain about the IAEA to both Borrell and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Tehran fears that keeping this question open will become inconvenient in the future, and it is thus betting that the westerners will eventually agree to forget about this 19-year-old issue in exchange for Iran allowing international inspectors to properly and fully fulfill their task of bringing its nuclear program, which remains largely unmonitored to this day, under control.

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How Likely Is the Use of Nuclear Weapons by Russia?

This photograph taken at a forensic expert center in an undisclosed location in Ukraine on November 24, 2024, shows parts of a missile that were collected for examination at the impact site in the town of Dnipro following an attack on November 21. (Photo by Roman PILIPEY / AFP)
This photograph taken at a forensic expert center in an undisclosed location in Ukraine on November 24, 2024, shows parts of a missile that were collected for examination at the impact site in the town of Dnipro following an attack on November 21. (Photo by Roman PILIPEY / AFP)
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How Likely Is the Use of Nuclear Weapons by Russia?

This photograph taken at a forensic expert center in an undisclosed location in Ukraine on November 24, 2024, shows parts of a missile that were collected for examination at the impact site in the town of Dnipro following an attack on November 21. (Photo by Roman PILIPEY / AFP)
This photograph taken at a forensic expert center in an undisclosed location in Ukraine on November 24, 2024, shows parts of a missile that were collected for examination at the impact site in the town of Dnipro following an attack on November 21. (Photo by Roman PILIPEY / AFP)

On 24 February 2022, in a televised speech heralding the Russian invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin issued what was interpreted as a threat to use nuclear weapons against NATO countries should they interfere.

“Russia will respond immediately,” he said, “and the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history.”

Then on 27 February 2022, Putin ordered Russia to move nuclear forces to a “special mode of combat duty’, which has a significant meaning in terms of the protocols to launch nuclear weapons from Russia.”

Dr. Patricia Lewis, director of the International Security program at Chatham House, wrote in a report that according to Russian nuclear weapons experts, Russia’s command and control system cannot transmit launch orders in peacetime, so increasing the status to “combat” allows a launch order to go through and be put into effect.

She said Putin made stronger nuclear threats in September 2022, following months of violent conflict and gains made by a Ukrainian counterattack.

“He indicated a stretch in Russian nuclear doctrine, lowering the threshold for nuclear weapons use from an existential threat to Russia to a threat to its territorial integrity,” Lewis wrote.

In November 2022, according to much later reports, the US and allies detected manoeuvres that suggested Russian nuclear forces were being mobilized.

Lewis said that after a flurry of diplomatic activity, China’s President Xi Jinping stepped in to calm the situation and speak against the use of nuclear weapons.

In September 2024, Putin announced an update of the 2020 Russian nuclear doctrine. The update was published on 19 November 2024 and formally reduced the threshold for nuclear weapons use.

According to Lewis, the 2020 doctrine said that Russia could use nuclear weapons “in response to the use of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its allies, as well as in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy.”

On 21 November 2024, Russia attacked Dnipro in Ukraine using a new ballistic missile for the first time.

She said Putin announced the missile as the ‘Oreshnik’, which is understood to be a nuclear-capable, intermediate-range ballistic missile which has a theoretical range of below 5,500km.

Lewis added that Russia has fired conventionally armed nuclear-capable missiles at Ukraine throughout the war, but the Oreshnik is much faster and harder to defend against, and suggests an escalatory intent by Russia.

Nuclear Response During Cold War

In her report, Lewis said that nuclear weapons deterrence was developed in the Cold War primarily on the basis of what was called ‘mutually assured destruction’ (MAD).

The idea behind MAD is that the horror and destruction from nuclear weapons is enough to deter aggressive action and war, she added.

But the application of deterrence theory to post-cold war realities is far more complicated in the era of cyberattacks and AI, which could interfere with the command and control of nuclear weapons.

In light of these risks, presidents Biden and Xi issued a joint statement from the 2024 G20 summit affirming the need to maintain human control over the decision to use nuclear weapons.

The US and Russia exchange information on their strategic, long-range nuclear missiles under the New START agreement – a treaty to reduce and monitor nuclear weapons between the two countries which is set to expire in February 2026.

But, Lewis said, with the US decision to exit the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 2019, there are no longer any agreements between the US and Russia regulating the number or the deployment of ground-launched nuclear missiles with a range of 500-5,500 km.

She said short-range nuclear weapons were withdrawn and put in storage as a result of the 1991 Presidential Nuclear Initiatives but are not subject to any legal restraints.

The 10th NPT Review Conference was held in 2022 in New York. The issue of nuclear weapons threats and the targeting of nuclear power stations in Ukraine were central to the debate.

Lewis noted that a document was carefully crafted to finely balance concerns about the three pillars of the treaty – non-proliferation, nuclear disarmament and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. But Russia withdrew its agreement on the last day of the conference, scuppering progress.

“It was believed that if Russia were to use nuclear weapons it would likely be in Ukraine, using short range, lower yield ‘battlefield’ nuclear weapons,” she said, adding that Russia is thought to have more than 1,000 in reserve.

“These would have to be taken from storage and either connected to missiles, placed in bombers, or as shell in artillery,” Lewis wrote.

Increasingly the rhetoric from Russia suggests nuclear threats are a more direct threat to NATO – not only Ukraine – and could refer to longer range, higher yield nuclear weapons.

For example in his 21 September 2022 speech, Putin accused NATO states of nuclear blackmail, referring to alleged “statements made by some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO countries on the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction – nuclear weapons – against Russia.”

Putin added: “In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff.”

There have been no expressed nuclear weapons threats from NATO states.

NATO does rely on nuclear weapons as a form of deterrence and has recently committed to significantly strengthen its longer-term deterrence and defence posture in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The current UK Labor government has repeatedly reiterated its commitment to British nuclear weapons – including before the July 2024 election, according to Lewis.

Therefore, she said, any movement to ready and deploy Russian nuclear weapons would be seen and monitored by US and others’ satellites, which can see through cloud cover and at night – as indeed appears to have happened in late 2022.

Lewis concluded that depending on other intelligence and analysis – and the failure of all diplomatic attempts to dissuade Russia – NATO countries may decide to intervene to prevent launch by bombing storage sites and missile deployment sites in advance.