International Crisis Group Warning: Deadlock in JCPOA Revival Talks Could Lead to ‘Military Actions’

The non-governmental organization “International Crisis Group” has warned in a recent report that if Iran and world powers fail to achieve “meaningful progress” in negotiations to revive the JCPOA, the deal will reach a “point of no return” “soon” and the United States and its allies may resort to “coercive diplomacy” or even “military actions” “within weeks,” while Iran may also move toward “regional and nuclear tensions.”

The report, released Monday, January 17, states that Iran’s nuclear program is “becoming more extensive and advanced day by day.”

The International Crisis Group says conservatives in power in Iran doubt the value of the JCPOA and “believe the country’s economy has absorbed the shock from US sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic and has emerged unscathed.”

However, the International Crisis Group considers this perspective of Iranian officials to be “weak and fragile” and states that “unbridled nuclear progress could also damage relations with China and Russia. More than anything, moving closer to achieving nuclear weapons capability—meaning acquiring all the necessary elements to produce a bomb without producing it—or directly and indirectly provoking US military action will provide no benefit to Iran and will likely provoke a reaction from Washington.”

In another section of its report, the International Crisis Group has offered solutions for progress in negotiations to revive the JCPOA agreement, saying Iran and the United States must use the “last opportunity” to preserve the JCPOA.

The report states that “differences over reversing Iran’s nuclear progress and lifting US sanctions are solvable if Washington can ensure that economic benefits of lifting sanctions are realized for Tehran and Tehran takes the necessary verifiable measures to limit its nuclear program.”

In explaining part of this solution, the organization has written that “in the first step, the United States must lift sanctions on Iran’s oil exports and allow corresponding revenues and Iran’s blocked assets abroad to be transferred into the country.”

According to the International Crisis Group, Iran must simultaneously “halt its most concerning nuclear activities, including: uranium enrichment to high levels, installation of advanced centrifuges, and uranium metal production.”

The organization says Tehran “must reverse the measures it has taken since 2019 in violation of the JCPOA in a way that is sustainably and verifiably compliant with the JCPOA.”

The International Crisis Group has also recommended that negotiating parties engage with each other “in parallel with Vienna talks” on issues outside the JCPOA framework, including reducing tensions between Iran and its Arab neighbors, the fate of dual nationals imprisoned in Iran, and facilitating humanitarian trade with Iran.

Ali Vaez, Iran Project Director at the International Crisis Group, says this report was prepared based on more than 50 interviews with officials from JCPOA signatories, the United States, the United Nations, and regional countries.

Earlier, in September, during Israeli Foreign Minister’s visit to the United States, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that if the diplomatic path with Iran, which he described as “the best course” to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, fails, “we are prepared, as the Israeli foreign minister has said, to turn to other options.”

Blinken made these remarks on Wednesday, October 12, at a press conference in Washington, alongside the foreign ministers of Israel and the UAE, in response to a journalist’s question about the possibility of military action against Iran if diplomacy for reviving the JCPOA fails.

Source: Voice of America