If it isn’t one thing in the Vienna talks, it’s another. The Iran nuclear deal has been at the any-day-now stage all month, but Iranian officials say they’re less clear on the direction and are waiting for a new round of Russian demands.
With the US finally open to accepting sanctions relief for Iran, the flurry of new sanctions against Russia looks to get in the way. Russia was quick to see problems, and while the specifics of the demands aren’t public yet, the gist is that Russia wants a guarantee that the new sanctions won’t be an obstacle for any obligations under the Iran deal.
The US is rejecting this so far, saying the Iran deal and Russia are unrelated and there’s no need to connect them. The argument that they’re not connected seems to be disconnected with spurning Russia’s demand for a promise not to connect them.
Iran is concerned, warning that they don’t want to endanger their own interests just to placate Russia. Working this out to the satisfaction of all parties is likely to further delay the process.
Russia needs written guarantees from U.S. that sanctions won’t hit cooperation with Iran if JCPOA reinstated – Lavrov
https://interfax.com/newsroom/top-stories/75623/
Lavrov also explicitly states what I’ve been saying for the past year!
And here is Richard Medurst explaining the real situation:
Russia ROCKS Iran Nuclear Deal, Demands Guarantee!
This is the US State Dept equivalent of, “Here’s the deal. I’ll stop torturing you if you agree to kill your best friend.”
Iran is concerned that the new deal would be delayed because of Russian demand… Iran is not concerned if after the new deal Russia would be banned by US to trade with Iran because Iran thinks it will be able to freely trade with lots of other countries in Europe and elsewhere…! However this thinking is not constructive because if US bans Russia to trade with Iran with more sanctions, which they will, both Iran and Russia lose a country to trade with…! Since Russia now under sanctions has a large volume of trade with Iran, both countries would suffer significantly… The Russian demand seems to be reasonable and legitimate to benefit both countries…!