Zvi Bar’el
Haaretz, May 29, 2023
“If these signals indicate that Iran intends to renew the negotiations, this intent may be attributed to the normalization with Saudi Arabia and the tight relations with China, which has sponsored the agreement between the two countries.”
“Utilitarianism is knowing where to show flexibility,” Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, explained in a long article published on his website on March 20, 10 days after the signing of renewed diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran. “Flexibility“ is not a new term in Khamenei’s lexicon. In 2013 he used the term “heroic flexibility” to explain why he gave the green light for negotiations with Western countries, which gave birth to 2015’s nuclear agreement.
Pundits in the West are quick to see the renewed use of the term as a signal that Iran is ready for a new round of talks about a nuclear deal. This is not the only indication. Last Thursday, Iran’s foreign minister, Hussein Amir Abdollahian, said, “The nuclear agreement is an international document and a road map to the removal of sanctions upon Iran.” He also revealed that correspondence is still ongoing between Iran and the signatories to the agreement regarding renewal of the negotiations, and that “good progress” has been made.
The U.S. administration was quick to deny these comments, but yesterday the ruler of Oman, Sultan Haitham bin Tarik, arrived in Tehran for talks on prisoner exchanges and ways to advance the nuclear talks. Oman played a key role in starting the negotiations in 2013. It also contributed to the renewal of Saudi-Iranian ties, and now it’s engaged in trying to renew diplomatic relations between Iran and Egypt.
Meanwhile Belgium and Iran have agreed upon a prisoner exchange deal, under which Iranian diplomat and intelligence operative Asadollah Assadi, who was convicted of an attempted bombing of a meeting of Iranian dissidents. In return, Belgium secured the release of an aid organization worker sentenced to a long prison term on charges of espionage.
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