00:00The U.S. and European powers are urging Iran to return to the negotiation table and comply with nuclear inspectors after U.N. sanctions snapped back into place.
00:10Iran described the measures as illegal and baseless and warned of an appropriate and decisive response to any move aimed at harming the country's interests.
00:19Joining me now is Alan Eyre, former senior U.S. diplomat and distinguished diplomatic fellow at the Middle East Institute.
00:24First of all, let me just start off by asking you, how significant is it, the fact that these sanctions have now been snapped back or the snapback mechanism has been triggered?
00:34Hello, Jamada. Thanks for having me on.
00:37I think it's more significant as of the overall trend of bilateral and multilateral relations with Iran.
00:45You know, it's the continuation of a process that started when President Trump pulled out of the JCPOA in 2018.
00:52The economic effect will be substantial on Iran to an extent that's already happened.
00:59It's an open question about to what extent these revived sanctions will be successfully implemented since Russia, which is a member of the Security Council,
01:08has also said, as has Iran, that it doesn't see this re-imposition of sanctions as legal by the E3.
01:15And they can put a significant spanner in the works in terms of successful U.N. implementation of these revived sanctions.
01:27Question for you. Why is Iran not complying with the demands of the E3?
01:33Why are they dragging their feet here?
01:35I think, to a large extent, they feel that they were asked to give too much too early.
01:46One of the main problems with Iran is what it sees as signaling.
01:50Often the West, the U.S., and the E3 sees escalation.
01:54It has 400 kilograms, roughly, of highly enriched uranium, 60%.
02:00And the E3 and the U.S. wanted Iran to give this over as a precursor to negotiations.
02:10But in Iran's mind, this is, pardon my pun, a trump card in the sense that this is something it's holding on to for the negotiations themselves.
02:20So, part of the problem is that Iran has zero trust in the negotiating process with the U.S., and to a lesser extent, with the E3.
02:30And part of it is that there's just a mismatch between what the West expects and what Iran is willing to give.
02:42But a lot of this was also about giving the IEA access to inspect some of those nuclear sites.
02:48I mean, the U.S. are calling for a full handover or at least identification of where they're hiding those enriched uranium facilities.
02:57But a lot of this is also about how much access the inspectors have.
03:02And do you think, on that side of things, it was actually quite significant that in his U.N. General Assembly speech,
03:08the president said that they plan to remain in the nonproliferation treaty?
03:12Well, that's a huge relief because there had been some people who had said that Iran, in a fit of pique, might pull out of the NPT.
03:22But Iran is relatively rational in its calculations and realized that pulling out of the NPT would be a weapon in the hands of its enemies
03:32and would do far more harm than good.
03:35Iran is not willing to walk away from diplomacy.
03:38It will continue to reach out and try and engage with the IAEA in terms of access,
03:46though Iran often substitutes process for progress when it comes to cooperation with the IAEA.
03:54But, no, I don't think they'll pull out of the NPT unless things get a lot worse.
03:58But they certainly will not cooperate fully with the IAEA to the extent necessary to reassure Western concerns
04:09about what Iran is doing with its nuclear program.
04:14I thought it was also significant that in the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech at the U.N. General Assembly,
04:20he also referenced Iran.
04:22And I've read a few comments out of analysts, you know, some geopolitical think tanks out there
04:30who think that there could be a probability of yet another flaring up of the Iran-Israel front.
04:36What likelihood would you place on that?
04:40Very likely.
04:40I mean, I think the U.S. has it in the mission accomplished file.
04:44Well, if you listen to President Trump's speech, he cited the Iran-Israel war as one of the seven wars he's ended.
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