Washington and Tehran will eventually be able to reach a nuclear deal because Iran needs relief from economic sanctions, according to a senior adviser to an American think tank.
“I think that ultimately an agreement is possible because the Iranians need money,” said Richard Goldberg, of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
The United States and Iran seem interested in returning to the negotiating table, but have not been able to reach an agreement on who should take the first step. The Biden government last week offered to start negotiations with Tehran, but Iran has repeatedly emphasized that the United States must lift sanctions to start the process. Washington has resisted those calls so far.
In addition, Iran’s new agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) “is certainly not useful” and falls short of what was previously allowed, Goldberg said.
Iran’s parliament passed a law that blocks IAEA inspections, but both sides said on Sunday that “the necessary verification and monitoring activities” could continue for up to three months.
Tan Feng Qin of the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore said that Iran is aware that preventing inspections could have disadvantages.
The three-month postponement “gives the US and Iran some space and time to try to find a solution to the sequencing problem,” he told CNBC’s “Capital Connection”.
Goldberg also remains optimistic that a deal could be struck.
“Whatever you are seeing, all the threats, terrorism, threats in the Gulf, the seizure of oil tankers, the nuclear program, the taking of hostages, all these are various extortion tactics to obtain money and obtain relief from sanctions” , he told CNBC. “Squawk Box Asia” on Monday. “It means that an agreement is possible.”
Iran’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Sanctions affect Iran’s economy
Heavy sanctions on Iran – imposed by the Trump administration after it withdrew from the 2015 agreement – have been devastating to Tehran’s economy.
According to the IMF, the last time Iran saw its GDP grow was in 2017, and the Islamic Republic only had access to $ 8.8 billion in foreign exchange reserves last year. That is less than $ 12.7 billion in 2019 and $ 121.6 billion in 2018.
“They are suffering from the sanctions that President Trump has imposed, the so-called maximum pressure campaign,” Goldberg said.
“Clearly, they need access to money, they need relief from sanctions and they want to generate a crisis to try to force Biden’s hand into some kind of negotiation that includes sanctions relief,” he added.
However, there are still doubts about how the business will be.
Iran said its violations of the Joint Comprehensive Action Plan (JCPOA) are reversible and can be returned. But Goldberg disagreed.
“There are many steps that are not reversible,” he said. “The technical know-how they have acquired by testing advanced centrifuges is something that we cannot put back in the bottle.”
He also pointed out that the agreement came with expiration dates for restrictions on the Iranian nuclear program.
“Since [the JCPOA is] already five years old, we are not in the period when the agreement is beneficial to Iran anyway, and this is a big question mark whether the Biden government and its European and Asian allies would like to return to an agreement or simply resist and negotiate a new deal, “he said.