Why Iran’s foreign minister is bullish on a nuclear pact

With the final deadline just two months away, negotiators from Iran and six world powers get back around the table in New York on Thursday to begin drafting a comprehensive nuclear agreement. And as the parameters of that deal come into clearer focus, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif sounds confident about getting a deal done — and implementing it within a couple of weeks of signing.

“We have general agreement on the concepts … the parameters of an agreement,” he told a large crowd at New York University on Wednesday. But he said the current text contains brackets on “almost everything,” and the sides still need to resolve differences — which he declined to specify — on wording.

Still, he asserted that all of those differences are surmountable. “I believe it can be done, I believe it should be done and this is an opportunity that should not be missed,” he said. Drafting the final accord will begin on the sidelines of a U.N. nuclear treaty review conference, and will continue next week in Europe.

Zarif, who is also Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, clarified questions on the timing of the deal after statements by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appeared to require the immediate lifting of all sanctions as soon as a deal is signed. This diverged from a fact sheet issued by the White House on April 2, after the achievement of a political understanding on the trade-off of sanctions relief for verifiable long-term caps on Iran’s nuclear work, that said removal of sanctions would be phased.

Zarif said a final deal would be endorsed within days by a U.N. Security Council resolution, which would terminate all previous resolutions regarding the Iranian nuclear program. These include four resolutions that establish the basis for multilateral sanctions on Iran.

The new resolution, he said, will codify procedures for lifting U.S. and European Union measures that impede foreign companies from doing business in Iran. At the same time, Iran will implement its obligations on a few key benchmarks: reducing the number of centrifuges operating at its Natanz and Fordow facilities, removing the core of a heavy-water reactor at Arak and decreasing its stockpile of low-enriched uranium to a level below what would be required for reprocessing into material for a single nuclear weapon. These steps would extend the breakout time required for Iran to produce sufficient fissile material for a single weapon from its current two to three months to at least one year.

Once Iran takes these actions, Zarif said, sanctions would end, on a schedule that remained a matter of discussion but that he said wouldn’t require more than a few weeks. The key, he said, “is to have a time frame which is simultaneous.”

He confirmed the White House’s contention that the situation would revert to the status quo if Iran fails to live up to its part of the bargain, adding that this principle was reciprocal.

“We can go back, and the other side can go back if the deal is breached,” he said, meaning that Iran could reinstall centrifuges and resume enrichment beyond the deal’s agreed levels. Zarif added that the parties had agreed on a procedure to adjudicate claims within 60 days to determine if there has been a “significant nonperformance of the obligation” on either side.

Iran intends to meet its obligations, he insisted, pointing to its compliance over the last 18 months with an interim agreement — and asserted that the U.S. has not implemented its own obligations under that deal quite as faithfully.

Asked to respond to Saudi Arabia’s threat to acquire the same nuclear fuel-cycle technology as Iran would be allowed to keep under the deal, Zarif said Iran would “welcome” that for Saudi Arabia and other signatories of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

A bigger threat, he said, came from Israel, whose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “has become everyone’s nonproliferation guru” even though Israel is “sitting on 400 warheads.” Most observers believe that Israel, the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, has about half that number in its unacknowledged arsenal.

Answering other questions, Zarif said it was too early to talk about normal diplomatic relations with Washington, and that Iran would not negotiate with Israel about anything. He said Iran’s first priority is restoring peace with its Arab neighbors, a prospect that looks shakier than ever as Riyadh cites Iran’s support for Houthi insurgents in Yemen as the basis for its bombing campaign there and as Tehran and its Hezbollah proxy prop up Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria against rebels backed, in many cases, by the Saudis.

Although Zarif spoke optimistically of a new, inclusive security paradigm for the region, Sunni Arab powers are hostile to the principle of Iranian involvement in Arab affairs and have sought stronger U.S. military backing to compensate for any nuclear deal.

He has spent much of his life in the U.S. and has an American politician’s turn of phrase and ability to deflect questions.  

Asked by moderator David Ignatius of The Washington Post why Iran forced the Maersk Tigris, a Marshall Islands–flagged commercial vessel intercepted in the Gulf, into an Iranian port on Tuesday, Zarif said the vessel was embroiled in a legal dispute over a commercial transaction.

Queried about the continued detention of Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post reporter jailed for nearly a year and now charged with espionage, Zarif said Rezaian was the target of  “some overzealous low-level operative [who] tried to take advantage of him” and get a U.S. visa for someone Zarif also did not name. At the same time, he called Rezaian “my friend” and said he hoped he would be “cleared in a court.”

While the foreign minister declined to comment on U.S. domestic politics, he could not resist a few jabs at Sen. Tom Cotton, the young Arkansas Republican who organized a letter by 46 fellow Republicans to Khamenei warning against a deal with President Barack Obama that they could block or that a later president could revoke.

Zarif, who has a doctorate in international law and politics from the University of Denver, said that the deal being negotiated would have the force of international law and would be mandatory on all nations “whether Sen. Cotton likes it or not.”