Talks held over the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), ended on Friday in Vienna without direct diplomacy between the United States and Iran. Three days before this meeting, in a virtual meeting on Tuesday, April 6, the Iranian government presented a plan, which it called the “Final Game Plan,” to the international parties.
What is the “final game plan” and what is Iran’s government searching for?
On March 5, 2021 Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council, announced in an interview with the Financial Times that if the West sends a clear signal that it would remove sanctions on Iran, then Iran would be ready to return to the talks.
This speech was against the instructions and the red line drawn by the regime’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei and moving back to the negotiations step-by-step. This was faced with the hasty reaction of the regime’s foreign ministry.
Mohamad Javad Zarif as the foreign minister immediately in a tweet announced: “Iranian polity is vibrant & officials express diverse opinions But those opinions should NOT be confused with state policy As Iran’s FM & chief nuclear negotiator, I will shortly present our constructive concrete plan of action—through proper diplomatic channels.”
So, the question here is, what is the ‘constructive concrete plan of action’ that Zarif is speaking about, that he refused to announce in public and said would do so ‘through proper diplomatic channels?’
The propositions provided in the negotiations last Friday, which was presented by Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, showed that what they are calling the “Final Game Plan” is the cancellation of sanctions at once.
Japan’s Kyodo News Agency quoted a senior Iranian government official as saying that Iran had presented the ‘Final Game Plan’ before Vienna talks at the Imperial Frankfurt Hotel in Germany.
The basis of the plan was that the Americans would remove all sanctions, and thereafter Iran would return to the JCPOA. While in the virtual meeting on Tuesday, April 6, this plan was accepted by the participating countries, and the news said that the US government is rejecting it and desires the Step-by-Step policy.
Adding to this, the U.S. side did not accept the removal of sanctions that are based on the regime’s human rights violations and terrorism.
As the US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said: “These talks have been described as constructive, as businesslike, as accomplishing what they set out to do. And that is true. We would characterize it that way as well. We would also, however, hasten to not allow expectations to outpace where we are. After all, we have said this will be hard.”
With this announcement of the United States, it would seem that the US government knows very well the trickery ways of this regime which wants to have all sanctions removed at once without paying any price, even the sanctions that are not related to the regime’s nuclear case.
While the entire regime expect all sanctions to be lifted as part of the “Final Game Plan,” the U.S. seeks to make Tehran understand that they should not expect the removal of nonnuclear sanctions.
This plan shows us something more, which is despite the regime’s claims and propaganda and its attempts to appease its supporters that the sanctions have no effect on the regime, this regime is taking its ‘last breath of life’, so that finally all its plans would lead to the removal of the sanctions at once.
And many in U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration want the continuation of the sanctions, even when they are rejecting in public Donald Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ campaign so that they said:
“We need not have broad strategic talks at this stage. We are engaged in technical talks about how we might get to that endpoint. And it will be hard of course because there is no insignificant degree of distrust between the United States and Iran, between the United States and the broader international community. Now, we’re not going to let any of that be insurmountable and potentially stand in the way. Maximalist demands are probably not going to get us very far.” (Ned Price, US State Department spokesperson, April 8)
