A few days of pause in the P5+1 talks with Iran wasn’t necessarily a game-changer for the diplomatic process, but Iran remains none-too-happy with the latest US sanctions against their trading partners, and is not afraid to say so.
Foreign Minister Javad Zarif warned Kerry over this in a phone call today, expressing “dissatisfaction” over the latest US sanctions, which both Iran and Russia have said violate the spirit of the P5+1 deal.
That the US used a technicality to impose new sanctions is also going to complicate the language of any final P5+1 deal, as Iran is no doubt going to go over the wording with a fine-tooth comb to avoid any more wiggle room for the US to renege on it.
Zarif provided some details on the red-lines for his nation in those talks, saying Iran is not willing to give up all uranium enrichment, nor to shutter the heavy-water reactor at Arak.
Iran may be about to get some major sanction easing in the coming weeks, however, as EU officials say they are ready to suspend a number of sanctions as soon as the interim P5+1 deal begin being implemented. The IAEA needs time to get more inspectors into the region for confirmation of the implementation of the deal, expected to come in early January.
Someone with influence on USg, maybe inside it, likes to make the US into liars. That's how I'd figure promises are broken, and/or any 'loophole' in an agreement sought out just to spite the other party. Most people would rather not make themselves into liars…absent some guarantee they weren't the ones harmed by it. What does e.g., WH gain from it?
Possibly the same folks will be looking to make EU into liars.
The government of Iran sponsors terrorism, seeks nuclear weapons, spews hateful rhetoric, and tramples the human rights of its own people. Iranian state-sanctioned assaults that are tantamount to crimes against humanity, including the highest per capita rate of executions in the world; the imprisonment and silencing of more journalists and bloggers than any other country; the persistent and pervasive assault on women’s rights; the targeting of religious and ethnic minorities, particularly the Baha’i and the Kurds; the criminalization of fundamental freedoms of speech, association and assembly; and the imprisonment of opposition leaders, human rights defenders, and the lawyers who would defend them. Don't lift sanctions until Iran improves it's human rights record