TEHRAN – Western countries are exploiting the recent foreign-backed riots in Iran to exert more pressure on the Islamic Republic at a time when talks on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal are ongoing, a political analyst has said.
U.S. special envoy for Iran Robert Malley acknowledged Monday that negotiations on a revival of the 2015 Iran deal are “not even on the agenda” for now.
In an interview with CNN, Malley accused the Islamic Republic of not being interested in restoring the deal.
He referred to the latest remarks by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell that he did not expect any movement anytime soon in efforts to revitalize the Iran deal, accusing Tehran of raising issues that were “inconsistent” with a return to the deal.
Iran has demanded that the United States provide assurances that it would not leave the deal again before it could reenter the agreement. Washington has refused to give a legally enforceable guarantee, leaving Iranian negotiators suspicious of the Biden administration’s seriousness in the talks.
Asked about the fate of negotiations, Malley said, “It’s not even on the agenda. It’s not the focus because there’s no movement… We will see whether this is a government that is interested in reaching that deal. But at this point, the focus is on what’s happening around because the talks are stalled.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a press briefing on Monday that the talks may be fatally stalled, saying, “We don’t see a deal coming together anytime soon.”
On Tuesday, the European Union imposed new sanctions against a number of Iranian persons and entities over the country’s response to the riots that followed the death of a young Iranian woman in police custody.
Speaking to Press TV, Batool Subeiti said that the protests over the death of Mahsa Amini turned violent very quickly, stressing that the security forces dealt with the situation as any other government force would do.
“You had armed separatist groups that clashed with security forces and as you mentioned the security forces did what any government force is expected to do in that situation. That is to clamp down on the rioters, who of course began to pull off the head scarves of women, setting public properties on fire. So the way that the protests morphed could never in any way be characterized as peaceful protests,” she said.
The riots were led by “foreign trained spies”, she said, adding that attacks on Iranian security forces by the Komala terrorist group are a proof of it.
Subeiti noted that Iranian intelligence sources have released information about how groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda were actually killed by the country’s military forces in provinces like Sistan and Baluchestan after they claimed responsibility for their earlier deadly attacks on police stations.
The IRGC has also dismantled armed groups in places like Azerbaijan, she added.
“So it’s no secret that the West had pre-planned this. Whether they were going to use the title of Mahsa’s death or any other title, they unleashed their undercover collaborating networks to wreak havoc in order to exert pressure on Iran in this very sensitive period when the nuclear negotiations are ongoing,” she said.