Saeed Jalili is an obstacle to the JCPOA agreement
Saeed Jalili is an obstacle to the agreement. Scattered news from within the principlist camp indicates a serious dispute not only over accepting or rejecting the US conditions but also over the entirety of the negotiations—whether to continue or stop—and the Jebhe Paydari movement, led by Saeed Jalili, is the most serious leader of this.
This can be inferred from the harsh and even threatening tweets of Jebhe Paydari members directed at Raisi and his team. While news suggests that Iran is preparing to sign the JCPOA revival as a new agreement, it must be said that if the negotiations fail, this movement should be considered the main culprit.
Jalili’s opinion from his close associates
To avoid being labeled as an opponent of the agreement, Saeed Jalili has remained silent for now, but his media arms and close associates are active. For instance, Amirhossein Sabeti, a TV presenter close to Saeed Jalili, writes that the original JCPOA did not bring any benefits to the country, questioning why there is such a humiliating desire to revive this colonial agreement.
And Abbas Ranjbar, head of Saeed Jalili’s office, tweeted last week that reviving the spirit of the JCPOA and the discredited thesis of resolving livelihood issues through compromise is conditioning the economy and imposing self-sanctions against domestic institutions, re-granting the pressure lever of the snapback mechanism and exceptional oversight to America and Israeli spies. Mr. Raisi and Bagheri, the direct responsibility for the consequences of this decision lies with you. Experts have evaluated this tweet as a proxy warning from Saeed Jalili through his office head.
Minimums not met
At the same time, tweets from Ali Khezrian, a member of the Jebhe Paydari faction in parliament and a member of the National Security Commission, reflect the faction’s view on the agreement process. In his latest tweet on the matter, he wrote that despite all the existing flaws regarding the lack of real guarantees and verification of sanctions lifting in the Vienna negotiation drafts, the Americans are still seeking excessive demands. The appropriate response is that whenever America lifts the sanctions, Iran will fulfill its commitments under the JCPOA, and this matter does not require negotiation.
Two weeks ago, he also emphasized in a thread that the proposed EU agreement text lacks the minimal essentials of a good agreement in line with the policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran, stating that setting any deadline for the agreement without addressing these issues is unacceptable. He wrote that according to the latest reports from the Vienna negotiations, unfortunately, the draft agreement to revive the JCPOA still has a significant gap from the country’s definitive policy.
According to him, the text still places the US President’s speech as a guarantee, and the verification of lifting sanctions has been entrusted to America instead of Iran. The minimal essentials of a good agreement, such as lifting oil and banking sanctions, closing the files of outstanding issues at the International Atomic Energy Agency, converting oil sales revenue into needed currency, and identifying customers to establish problem-free trade and economic relations, have also not been resolved in the draft.
One of the risks that could prevent the completion of negotiations and allow the West to extract concessions from Iran on issues beyond the nuclear, such as defense and regional matters, is the failure to address the sanction issue in the agreement and deferring it to after the agreement.
It’s the same Rouhani agreement
In April, Mahmoud Nabavian, another member of Jebhe Paydari, criticized in a note that the same conditions that Rouhani and his team did not adhere to were also not adhered to by Bagheri Kani, and in his opinion, no difference has occurred from this perspective. By conditions, he meant the removal of all sanctions and a US guarantee not to exit the JCPOA.
Nabavian also mentioned the Strategic Action Plan for Lifting Sanctions, which has been disregarded in Raisi’s government and not reported to parliament, writing that despite all this, the system’s red lines have not been observed in the draft obtained. According to Nabavian, the negotiation team has accepted Biden’s promotional speech at the G20 summit as a guarantee.
Last winter, it was revealed that a 200-page letter from Saeed Jalili to the leadership had been sent. Although he reacted by saying, ‘I have always had correspondence and consider it my duty to express my views. The previous government gave a report on the JCPOA at the end of its term. I reviewed it and pointed out the discrepancies with reality. This letter was related to six months ago and criticized the previous government’s report on the JCPOA achievements. However, these issues are not worth delving into.’
It was said that Jalili had previously and before sending this letter, had his contacts with Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, the Foreign Minister, and Ali Bagheri Kani, his political deputy and head of the Iranian negotiation team in the Vienna JCPOA revival talks, and since he failed to persuade them, he resorted to writing to the leadership.