Iran to allow nuclear monitoring if sanctions are lifted, says foreign minister Araghchi

Iran’s Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araghchi has said that Tehran is ready for a real and lasting agreement that includes strict monitoring and limits on its domestic uranium enrichment in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. In an opinion piece Aragchi wrote for the Guardian on Sunday, Iran’s foreign minister urged the European nations to change course and abandon their plan to snapback a wide array of UN sanctions at the end of the month and warned of “unprecedentedly destructive” consequences otherwise. “If this short opportunity to change course is missed, it will have consequences that could be unprecedentedly destructive for the region and beyond,” Aragchi warned in his piece titled, “A message from Tehran to Britain, France and Germany: in your own interests, you should change course.”

Tehran is still hoping that Europeans can be persuaded to defer snapping back sanctions at the UN Security Council while arguing that Europe will not benefit from such a move since it will only put the US in the driving seat on negotiating any new nuclear deal and leave Europe isolated. However, conflicting signals are emerging from within Iran.

The minister said that he had made progress in recent talks with the UN weapons inspectors on their terms for their return to Iran’s bombed nuclear sites, one of the preconditions set by Europe for deferring the snapback.

However, the Iranian parliament is still discussing a bill that would require Iran to leave the nuclear non-proliferation treaty if UN sanctions were restored, which would shut off all independent access to its nuclear sites.

‘European leaders making a huge mistake if they think…’

Araghchi, who met with the EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, in Doha last Thursday, claims European leaders are making a huge mistake if they think that by being tough with Iran, the US President Donald Trump will stop viewing them as secondary actors and give them a place on the world stage.

The return of UN sanctions “will only exclude the three countries from future diplomatic processes, with widespread negative consequences for the whole of Europe in terms of its credibility and global standing,” he wrote.

‘Trump views European countries as secondary players’

“President Trump has made it clear that he views the three European countries as secondary players, and this is evident in the exclusion of Europe from issues that are vital to its future, including the Russia-Ukraine crisis. Washington’s message is clear: to gain a foothold, the three countries must demonstrate unwavering loyalty.”

“Israel may present itself as capable of fighting on behalf of the west, but as we saw in June, the truth is that Iran’s powerful armed forces are once again ready and capable of defeating Israel to the point where it will be forced to turn to ‘Grandpa’ for salvation,” Aragchi wrote, referring to Israel’s dependence on the US for military hardware.

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