Iran launches energetic diplomacy, signals readiness for nuclear talks, as Supreme Leader supportive (IANS Analysis)

New Delhi, Aug 30 (IANS) Within a month of taking charge, Iran’s new government, led by President Masoud Pezeshkian, has launched a wide-ranging diplomatic outreach, engaging with both neighbours and far-away nations, and declared willingness to negotiate with the West on the nuclear issue and sanctions, having seemingly obtained approval of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

While all sections of the Iranian leadership, from the political to the diplomatic to the security establishment, keep on vowing retaliation against Israel over the assassination of Hamas Politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh, any action is yet to be seen amid the ongoing Gaza conflict, and there are efforts to engage the West, particularly European nations.

President Pezeshkian set the ball rolling as he said that his country is ready to help stop war, violence, and insecurity throughout the globe and promote peace and friendship with all countries, but will not countenance sanctions and pressures.

“If Iran is forced to do something by sanctions and pressure, the country’s approach and behaviour will definitely be pushed in another direction,” he told Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store in a phone conversation on Wednesday.

The moves are further bolstered by the return of former Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif as Deputy President for Strategic Affairs – a fortnight after his surprise announcement that he was resigning. Zarif, as Foreign Minister in the Hasan Rouhani government, had, along with his then deputy and current Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, been involved in negotiating what became the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with the Western powers, as well as Russia and China, in 2015. Thus, both have had plentiful experience in dealing with the West.

While talks on reviving the JCPOA, which practically became defunct when then US President Donald Trump pulled out his country from it in 2018, have been ongoing since 2021, Araqchi has indicated that Iran is looking for a new agreement.

In recent remarks on the 2015 deal, he said that he clarified that he had not said that the JCPOA could not be revived, but instead that it needed to be reworked.

“The JCPOA cannot be revived in its current form, but there will definitely be other forms of agreement that we will pursue,” he noted.

On relations with the West, the Foreign Minister, in his first interview after being confirmed by the Parliament – tellingly to Japan’s Kyodo News Agency, maintained that as a major step toward lifting the sanctions on Iran’s economy and returning it to normal global trade relations, he would seek to manage tensions with Washington and rebuild ties with European countries, but only if they abandon their “hostile approach”.

“In my foreign policy address to the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Parliament), I highlighted the crucial objective of lifting sanctions, particularly unilateral ones, through earnest, focused, and time-bound negotiations while upholding the nation’s fundamental principles,” he added.

All this diplomatic approach impinges on the acquiescence of the Supreme Leader, and Ayatollah Khamenei’s recent remarks indicate he has given conditional approval – though in rather abstract and cryptic language that seems to be the norm in Iranian politics and requires sifting closely to gauge their essential meaning.

In a speech on August 25, Khamenei, in potential support of pragmatic diplomacy, underlined that wars have been waged in different forms throughout history but “do not always mean taking up arms; rather, it means thinking correctly, speaking properly, understanding things accurately, and striking the target with precision”.

Meeting the new cabinet on August 27, soon it was confirmed by the Parliament, the Supreme Leader, in his most unambiguous statement so far, maintained: “We must not place hope in the enemy or await its approval…this does not, however, contradict interaction with the same enemy in some instances. There is no obstacle to that.”

Iran is also engaged in energetic diplomacy in the region – and beyond.

In his first foreign visit as President, Pezeshkian is slated to travel to neighbouring Iraq to sign several agreements.

The country has already hosted two major diplomatic visits.

Neighbouring Turkmenistan’s leader Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow was in Tehran this week and the two sides signed four agreements on diplomatic and economic cooperation, including in the natural gas sector. Pezeshkian termed the last as “a strategic step towards turning Iran into a regional gas hub”.

A day before, Qatar’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani arrived and met both Pezeshkian and Araqchi.

Araqchi on Monday announced that he had in the previous 48 hours, engaged with regional counterparts from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey on affairs of the area and enhanced bilateral cooperation. He also held talks with his counterparts from the UAE, Kuwait, Oman, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, as well as France, Germany, Japan, Italy and the EU.

(Vikas Datta can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in)

–IANS

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