Iran 'recognises' damage Europeans can inflict on them but they're no longer 'impressed by Europe'

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00:00An Italian journalist freed after three weeks in Tehran's notorious Evin prison is back

00:05home.

00:0629-year-old Cecilia Sala touching down in Rome as a Milan court reviews the case of

00:13an Iranian engineer arrested recently in Italy and wanted in the United States.

00:22The Italian prime minister stating that this was the fruit of intense diplomatic negotiations.

00:31For more, let's cross to Tehran and correspondent Saeed Azimi.

00:36Saeed, it was a 29-year-old journalist who had a visa to work, who was arrested.

00:45Thus, there were questions as to why she was arrested and questions as to the conditions

00:50surrounding her release.

00:53The first question that you mentioned, Francois, about why she was arrested, it is still unanswered

00:58to us as well.

00:59The Iranian minister of culture released a statement shortly after the news of Cecilia's

01:05arrest was published that she was arrested on the charge of violating the Islamic Republic's

01:12laws.

01:13The statement did not clarify what laws she had violated.

01:17There was a video of her for Quora Media that she released, and she was not wearing her

01:21scarf and her hijab, and there were speculations that she was arrested because of publishing

01:27that video.

01:28But I actually met Cecilia Sala in Tehran on December 14, so she was fixing her hijab

01:36whenever it fell off.

01:38She was very cautious about that.

01:39I don't think that was the main reason she was arrested.

01:43As for the conditions for her release, these are not specified yet.

01:50So what we are hearing, there are speculations, both in Tehran and in Rome, that Iran have

01:57a diplomatic request, a political request from Italy, which is mainly surrounding the

02:05JCPOA revival negotiations.

02:08The Iranian deputy foreign minister is set to meet with French, British, and German political

02:15directors of the foreign ministries of these three countries in Geneva on Sunday.

02:21So the speculation in Tehran is that Cecilia Sala was freed so that the EU representative

02:27Enrique Mora wouldn't fixate on yet another humanitarian case in Tehran, because we already

02:34have the case of three French hostages in Tehran.

02:38Three French hostages in Tehran.

02:41And there were these questions over an Iranian engineer arrested recently.

02:48The U.S. wanted his extradition, and he's filed a motion for his imprisonment to be

02:54lightened to house arrest.

02:57Yes, but the house arrest has been declined, and there are speculations yet to be confirmed

03:06that Mohammad Abedini, the Iranian engineer arrested in Milan, will be freed soon, some

03:11say tomorrow, after President Biden visits Rome.

03:15Saeed Azimi, many thanks for that live update from Tehran, that it's the Iranian engineer

03:22accused by the United States of supplying drone technology that was used in an attack

03:28on U.S. forces in Jordan.

03:31Well, for more analysis, let's cross to Uppsala, Sweden.

03:34Roozbeh Parsi is the head of the Middle East and North Africa program at the Swedish Institute

03:39of International Affairs.

03:42Roozbeh, more questions than answers, as you heard from our correspondent there, when it

03:46comes to the specific case of Cecilia Sala.

03:51But it does seem as though this is part of a wider game, what the French pointedly call

03:56hostage diplomacy on the part of Tehran.

03:59Well, this is always the suspicion, at least, when anyone, particularly Westerners, are

04:04imprisoned in Iran, since the judiciary in Iran is very not transparent and very inconsistent

04:12in what it claims, what it accuses people of, and what they imprison people for.

04:17In this specific case, what do you make of the timeline here?

04:21You have the Italian prime minister, who last weekend was in Mar-a-Lago.

04:27He's going to be welcoming Joe Biden soon on his last trip abroad as U.S. president.

04:35And then this announcement that surprised some.

04:39Well, yes, but I think it plays into the larger picture of everyone wondering what Trump is

04:46going to do once he becomes president.

04:49And so everyone is trying to prepare themselves and, to the extent possible, ingratiate themselves

04:54with him in order not to end up on the wrong side of the stick, as it were, once he goes

05:00into the White House again.

05:01Now, of course, for Iran, this is a particularly difficult moment, because for the last year

05:05they have lost a lot of their influence and perceived ability to deter attacks.

05:11And there's now talk, both in Israel and in Washington, D.C., of maybe Iran being on the

05:16ropes, one could finish them off once and for all.

05:20The maximalist sanctions that Donald Trump put back when he became president the first

05:27time, those have not gone away.

05:29And with a weakened Iran, what's his next move going to be when he becomes president again?

05:36Well, the problem here is, of course, that his appointments have been rather contradictory.

05:41So we have a lot of people who either claim or who will be appointed by him, and they

05:46have very different positions on Iran.

05:49Some of them are very hawkish, and they believe that this maximum pressure that he initiated

05:53when he was president last is working, supposedly.

05:56And there are those who don't want to get bogged down into yet another military confrontation

06:02in the Middle East, and therefore not interested in pursuing, if you want to call it, an Israeli

06:07line of keep pushing Iran.

06:09So at the moment, it's very difficult to see which side is going to get the upper hand

06:14and whether Trump himself is going to be personally involved, because, of course, for him, more

06:18than anything else, it's a question of whether he can make a deal, a deal that will be better

06:22than the nuclear agreement that Obama managed to get.

06:27And that could be one of the stepping stones towards getting a Nobel Peace Prize, which

06:30supposedly is something that he's very much coveting.

06:33Later in this hour, Roosevelt, we're going to be hearing from Philip Turrell about the

06:38press conference that's just happened with the visiting U.S. secretary of state here

06:42in Paris with his French counterpart, the two of them giving a long leash to Syria's

06:46new leaders one month after the fall of Assad, saying there's hope for Syria's future.

06:51You talk about Iran being on the ropes.

06:53Is there a scramble for the Middle East happening?

06:57Well, I think everyone understands now that a lot of the things that were taken for granted

07:03as being facts no longer are.

07:05They are all put in question.

07:07So now it's a question of who can create new facts on the ground.

07:11And of course, Israel here is in the driving seat more than anyone else, since they have

07:16created some of the new facts and they are using their military to the fullest extent

07:21in order to destroy their enemies.

07:23And the United States so far has not restrained them in any visible manner, at least.

07:28And so the question is whether Trump will let them continue doing this or whether when

07:33he comes in, he wants peace and quiet, which then either means that things will go more

07:37peaceful or that the Israelis will need to do whatever they need to do now before he

07:41comes into power.

07:43And getting back to this hostage situation, because we heard an interview this Wednesday

07:50morning with the Nobel Peace Laureate, Narges Mohamedi, speaking to French radio.

07:57She expressed a lot of concern from her house arrest for one of those three French hostages,

08:03Cecilia Coller.

08:05She's saying she's in bad shape in Evin prison.

08:09Any thoughts on what Emmanuel Macron can do at this juncture?

08:13Well, I think the Iranians are in general not particularly impressed or interested in

08:20Europe anymore.

08:21That, of course, doesn't mean that they don't recognize that Europe can still hurt them

08:25quite a lot.

08:26So I think at this point, it's whether the Europeans have a common position or whether

08:30the Iranians will try and deal with each member state, especially the big ones, and whether

08:36they think that releasing some of these prisoners might help them not to end up being put under

08:43more pressure by Europe.

08:45Europe has one main leverage at this point, and that is the snapback function of the nuclear

08:50agreement, which if they initiate it would return all UN sanctions on Iran.

08:56Now, Iran is already, in a sense, inundated by sanctions.

09:00So it's not that it's going to be a huge difference, but it will make everything else

09:05already difficult, much more difficult.

09:07So I think they would want to avoid that.

09:09And maybe, just maybe, this would be one of the avenues that can be pursued in order to

09:13avoid that, and also then result in the release of these prisoners.

09:18Roozbeh Parsi, many thanks for being with us from Uppsala, Sweden.

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