00:00Talks between Iran and a number of European nations over Tehran's nuclear program set to get underway.
00:07The UK, France and Germany threatening to reimpose sanctions on Iran
00:10unless they say it resumes its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency and curbs uranium enrichment.
00:17Iran, for its part, once again said it had no intention to build nuclear weapons but maintains the right to enrichment.
00:23Iran says it suspended cooperation following the 12-day war that saw Israel and the United States bomb nuclear sites in Iran with no condemnation from the IAEA.
00:33To get more insight, we can speak now to Swedish-Iranian historian at Lund University in Sweden, Dr. Ubez Parsi.
00:39Thanks so much for your time.
00:41Can I start simply by asking you these talks that are set to get underway, where do you see them going?
00:46Do you think they'll manage to re-establish cooperation between these European nations and Iran on the nuclear issue?
00:53It depends. The latest news is that the Russians have tabled the UN Security Council resolution draft,
00:59which would be something that could go halfway between what the Europeans want from the Iranians and what the Iranians can stomach.
01:06So that would extend the deadline for the snapback for six months,
01:10while the Iranians then have to cooperate more with the IAEA and so on.
01:14So it remains to be seen whether that can help dislodge the impasse between the Europeans and the Iranians today.
01:20Indeed, we saw Iran speak, the two presidents, the Iranian president and the Russian president, speak just ahead of these talks.
01:27I know Iran was also in contact with China, which is often what happens ahead of negotiations.
01:32What kind of impact do you think that they will have on that?
01:36And remind us maybe why the fallout happened between the European nations and Iran.
01:40I mean, things have been progressing quite significantly for a long time.
01:46Yes. I mean, you could say that in the last couple of years, the Iranian-European relationship has been steadily deteriorating,
01:51especially because of Iranian support for Russia and the invasion of Ukraine and the fact that the Iranians were enriching to higher and higher degrees.
01:59On the other hand, the Iranians complained about that the Europeans have done very little, if anything, to maintain the agreement once America left during Trump's first presidency.
02:10Now, the Iranians and Americans were negotiating when Israel initiated the war.
02:15And Europeans did not condemn the Israeli attacks and instead told Iran that it needed to negotiate,
02:21which was somewhat strange considering the fact that that was exactly what was supposed to happen.
02:26So the Iranians have since then suspended all talks with the Americans.
02:30The Americans have not themselves shown much interest in negotiating further since the official American line is that they have obliterated the Iranian nuclear program.
02:39So the Europeans now want the Iranians to show how much highly enriched uranium they have.
02:45And the Iranians are saying that that's impossible to do since the sites have been destroyed.
02:49And in any case, they don't want the Americans to know how much is left before they have a guarantee that they will be able to negotiate without further war.
02:59What do you think the impact was of that 12-day war on Iran and the bombing of its nuclear facilities?
03:05I mean, did it actually potentially motivate them even more to enrich uranium?
03:09What do you think the impact was?
03:12Well, there are several somewhat contradictory dynamics going on.
03:16One, you could say that the population at large seemed to be very now more keen on being able to show that the country can be defended.
03:25So it's not the defense of the Islamic Republic as much as the country.
03:28So there has been a kind of mini surge of nationalism, if you will.
03:32And there has been more people within the political circles who previously were much more cautious about how far they were willing to go
03:39in pushing the line on this nuclear issue, who are now saying that Iran might actually need to have a nuclear weapon in order to deter further attacks.
03:47So there is that dynamic.
03:49On the other side, you can also see that the American attack probably was a huge dent in the capacity of this program to begin with,
03:57which means that there are those who are also thinking that this is not a sustainable way forward.
04:02There needs to be some kind of detente with the United States, and that is the only way of making sure that the Israelis will not attack again.
04:09So they do want to negotiate, it seems.
04:12They're not sure how far they're willing to go in those negotiations.
04:15But the big X factor here is that the Americans are not signaling exactly what they want to negotiate about
04:21and whether they will be able to sustain those negotiations, considering the fact that Donald Trump changes his mind quite often.
04:28And did we not hear also from Iran's supreme leader this weekend saying that he was ruling out entering any direct negotiations with the U.S.,
04:35which, you know, one wonders where things could go then from there.
04:40Yes. I mean, to some degree, that's the kind of thing everyone expects him to say.
04:44Doesn't necessarily mean that there won't be negotiations.
04:47But at this point, of course, there's no one who is willing to stick out their political neck, as it were, in Tehran to negotiate with the Americans
04:55if they cannot get some kind of tacit, implicit guarantee that the Americans won't bomb you at the same time as you're negotiating with them.
05:04Indeed. Dr. Rubens-Parsi will have to unfortunately leave it there.
05:07But thanks so much for joining us on France 24 from Lund University in Sweden.
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