US envoy for Iran doubts revival of nuclear deal, promotes diplomatic solution

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The possibility of reviving the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran is “tenuous” at best, the United States envoy to Tehran told lawmakers on Wednesday, claiming that Iran’s “excessive” demands have made it unlikely to hold successful negotiations, days after news outlets suggested that Washington has made a final decision not to delist the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from its terror list.

"As of today the odds of a successful negotiation are lower than the odds of failure and that is because of excessive Iranian demands to which we will not succumb," Robert Malley, the US special envoy to Iran told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday.

The envoy added that Washington rejects any demands that are not a part of the confines of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), most likely referring to Iran’s demands for the US to remove the IRGC from the terror list.

The statements from Malley follow the publication of claims by POLITICO on Tuesday, citing a “senior Western official” who confirmed that Washington had made a final decision to keep the IRGC on the list, adding that Biden conveyed the news to Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett during a phone call in April but had asked him to keep it quiet for the time being.

Malley, who has led the indirect talk with Iran for over a year, added that the US cannot seek to resolve this issue through the use of military force, and instead should pursue a diplomatic solution with the Uranium-rich country. “The military option cannot resolve this issue,” he said. “The only option here is the diplomatic one.”

In his prepared testimony, Malley blamed the protests in Iran on the Iranian administration’s “corruption and mismanagement, and the brutal response to those protests are a reminder of the [Iranian] Government’s moral bankruptcy.”

He added during the questioning that the Iranian leadership would “beg to differ with the description of their economy doing well,” explaining that the rial has lost 85 percent of its value since 2018, “25 percent of that under President Biden’s watch.”

Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who has been an outspoken critic of reviving the nuclear deal, stated that reinstated sunset clauses from the original agreement would remove many nuclear-related sanctions imposed on Iran, which would provide the country with 275 billion dollars worth of sanctions relief in the first year alone.

Malley claimed that Dubowitz’s numbers were “wildly exaggerated,” adding that according to their intelligence, removing sanctions on Iranian oil exports would bring Iran about $5 billion a month “at current prices.”

The price of one kilogram of flour rose from 2,700 toman (less than 10 cents) to 16,000 tomans (around 60 cents), according to Iran International. One toman is equal to 10,000 Iranian rials. The surge in flour prices have resulted in increasing bread and pasta prices, leading to massive demonstrations engulfing the country. 

The JCPOA was agreed upon between Iran, Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States in 2015, offering Tehran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.

When former US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the deal in 2018 and imposed stiff economic sanctions, Tehran embarked upon the process of rolling back on its nuclear commitments.

Iran and world powers, including the US, have held talks for over a year aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, with Iran insisting that the US must lift its crippling sanctions, including those on the IRGC, and to provide a guarantee that future US administrations will not be able to withdraw from the deal.

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