Editorials

The Irish Times view on the Iran nuclear deal: paused by the war

For Vladimir Putin the Iran agreement has become just another blackmail tool

The EU said on Friday that the talks it is chairing on the revival of the 2015 Iran nuclear accord must be paused, days after fresh demands from Russia complicated negotiations. Photograph: Hamid Foroutan/ ISNA/AFP via Getty Images

Mon Mar 14 2022 - 17:53

Since May 2018, when then US president Donald Trump decided to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Russian diplomats have been working hard to see the deal revived.

Russia has long viewed Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons as a dangerous shift to the regional balance of power in Tehran's favour which could spread panic and lead to a nuclear arms race in the volatile region.

But the Ukraine invasion has changed the calculation. For Vladimir Putin the JCPOA has become just another blackmail weapon and, just as international talks in Vienna appeared close to reviving the deal, Moscow has fired a diplomatic missile into them by insisting that western sanctions should not impede Russian trade with Iran. On Friday the talks were put on "pause".

Iran has appeared close to signing up to resuming the agreement, a key foreign policy priority of Joe Biden and the EU, and on which Ireland has been working as UN Security Council facilitator. Observers say an end to economic sanctions against Iran could very quickly free access to some tens of billions of petrodollars trapped in foreign central banks and allow it rapidly to ramp up its oil exports to bolster its ailing economy. The resumed exports could also provide an important stabiliser to soaring oil prices internationally as sanctions on Russian oil begin to bite.

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There remain significant hurdles to agreement. A conservative-dominated Tehran is still seeking guarantees that no future US government will repeat Trump’s pull-out, guarantees no administration can provide. And it also wants the lifting of parallel sanctions over the activities of its revolutionary guards in a number of regional conflicts. But Iran insists that its attitude to doing a deal has not been changed by Russia’s demands, though agreement without the support of the Security Council member is not seen as viable.

By playing with fire in the tinder box that is Middle East politics, Russia is cynically internationalising the war in Ukraine on yet another front.

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