VIENNA: Talks to revive Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers were mired in uncertainty on Sunday following Russia’s demands for a US guarantee that the sanctions it faces over the Ukraine conflict will not hurt its trade with Tehran.
Moscow threw the potential spanner in the works on Saturday, just as months of indirect talks between Tehran and Washington in Vienna appeared to be headed for an agreement, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov saying the Western sanctions over Ukraine had become a stumbling block for the nuclear deal.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken sought to dispel talk of such obstacles on Sunday when he said that the sanctions imposed on Russia over Ukraine had nothing to do with a potential nuclear deal with Iran.
“These things are totally different and just are not, in any way, linked together. So I think that’s irrelevant,” Blinken said in an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” show. He added that a potential deal with Iran was close, but cautioned that a couple of very challenging remaining issues were unresolved.
Yet a senior Iranian official told Reuters earlier that Tehran was waiting for clarification from Moscow about the comments from Lavrov, who said Russia wanted a written US guarantee that Russia’s trade, investment and military-technical cooperation with Iran would not be hindered in any way by the sanctions.
“It is necessary to understand clearly what Moscow wants. If what they demand is related to the JCPOA, it would not be difficult to find a solution for it,” said the Iranian official, referring to the 2015 nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
“But it will be complicated, if the guarantees that Moscow has demanded, are beyond the JCPOA.”
British, French and German diplomats who had flown home before Lavrov’s comments to brief officials on the nuclear talks have not indicated when they might return to Vienna.
Henry Rome, Iran analyst at consultancy Eurasia group, said reviving the nuclear pact without Russia was “tricky but probably doable, at least in the near term.”
“If Russia continues to obstruct the talks, I think the other parties and Iran will have no choice but to think creatively about ways to get the deal done without Moscow’s involvement,” Rome told Reuters.
On Sunday, Iranian negotiators met EU diplomat Enrique Mora, who coordinates the talks between Tehran and world powers.
Since the election of Iran’s hard-line president Ebrahim Raisi last year, senior officials have been pushing for deeper ties with Russia.
Iran’s top authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, has publicly and privately been calling for closer ties with Russia due to his deep mistrust of the United States.
The 2015 agreement, between Iran and the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Russia and Chin, eased sanctions on Tehran in return for limiting Iran’s enrichment of uranium, making it harder for Tehran to develop material for nuclear weapons. The accord fell apart after President Donald Trump withdrew the United States in 2018.
The return of Iranian oil would help replace Russian barrels lost as the United States and its allies seeks to freeze out Moscow ,following the invasion and soften the impact on the West which is already struggling with high inflation.
US negotiator Robert Malley has suggested that securing the nuclear pact is unlikely unless Tehran frees four US citizens, including Iranian-American father and son Baquer and Siamak Namazi.
A senior Iranian official in Tehran said if Tehran’s demands are met the prisoners issue can be resolved with or without a revival of the nuclear deal.
Iran, which does not recognize dual nationality, denies US accusations that it takes prisoners to gain diplomatic leverage. In recent years, the elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on espionage and security-related charges.
Tehran has sought the release of over a dozen Iranians in the United States, including seven Iranian-American dual nationals, two Iranians with permanent US residency and four Iranian citizens with no legal status in the United States.
Iranian nuclear talks clouded by Russian demands
https://arab.news/9vxhh
Iranian nuclear talks clouded by Russian demands
- Russian FM Sergei Lavrov said that Western sanctions over Ukraine had become a stumbling block for the nuclear deal
- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken: ‘These things are totally different and just are not, in any way, linked together’
Epstein files reveal links to cash, women, power in Africa
- Documents attest to Epstein’sclose ties with Karim Wade, son of former Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade
- They also reveal his ties to Nina Keita, niece of Ivorian president Alassane Ouattara
PARIS: Jeffrey Epstein built close ties with powerful figures in Senegal and Ivory Coast, files released by the US government last month show, detailing the late sex offender’s influence network across Africa.
Emails, scheduled meetings, investment projects, and loans reviewed by AFP attest to the disgraced New York financier’s close relationship with Karim Wade, son of former Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade.
They also reveal his ties to Nina Keita, niece of Ivorian president Alassane Ouattara.
Wade and Epstein met in 2010 through Emirati businessman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, who recently resigned as CEO of port giant DP World after mounting pressure over his close friendship with Epstein.
The pair quickly struck up a rapport.
“Thanks for coming. I think there are many things to consider... I feel confident that we will have fun,” Epstein wrote to Wade on November 15, 2010 after their first meeting in Paris.
“Have a safe trip back to your paradise Island,” Wade replied.
While Wade’s exchanges show no link to Epstein-related sex trafficking crimes, they do reveal conversations on potential business ventures in various sectors, such as finance and energy.
Nicknamed the “Minister of Heaven and Earth” for the multiple portfolios he held including international cooperation, energy, and air transport, Wade was a powerful figure in Senegal until April 2012, when his father’s bid for a third term sparked deadly riots.
Epstein saw him as “one of the most important players in africa” and invited him to meet close contacts such as Ehud Barak, then Israel’s defense minister.
He also put him in touch with Chinese businessman Desmond Shum to discuss “offshore banking.”
The US Department of Justice documents show Shum and Wade met in Beijing on May 9, 2011.
That same month, Wade planned an African tour through Senegal, Mali, and Gabon for Epstein.
‘You will not suffer’
Epstein and Wade’s relationship became even more apparent after the latter’s fortunes reversed when his father left office in 2012.
That autumn, Epstein proposed that his “friend” — under the Dakar authorities’ scrutiny over his assets — use his house in Florida.
“You and your family are welcome to use my house in palm beach, staff is there, pool etc. you will not suffer,” Epstein wrote.
“Txs a lot Brother for the advise,” Wade replied a few weeks later to another email, in which Epstein urged him to “stay mentally strong.”
Numerous files suggest Epstein became financially involved on Karim Wade’s behalf after his arrest in 2013 and his 2015 sentencing to six years in prison for corruption.
Karim Wade’s lawyer, Mohamed Seydou Diagne, sent two invoices in May 2014 and July 2015 of $500,000 to one of Epstein’s companies.
Contacted by AFP on Monday, Diagne said he “did not consider it useful to comment.”
Other archives suggest that Epstein covered at least $50,000 in fees for the US lobbying firm Nelson Mullins, hired by Wade’s entourage to secure his release.
Epstein regularly exchanged emails with Robert Crowe, a partner at the firm who kept him informed of their efforts in the US and Senegal.
In a June 16, 2016 email thread where Epstein and Crowe discussed whether then Senegalese president Macky Sall would pardon Wade, Crowe writes: “He has told my friends high up at State that he was going to do it. They have been putting pressure on him!“
Karim Wade was released from prison eight days later, on June 24, and went into exile in Qatar, which he credited for efforts toward his release.
Jeffrey Epstein was told by Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem and Nina Keita.
‘A very interesting person!’
The DOJ documents show Nina Keita was close to both Epstein and Karim Wade and that she acted as a regular intermediary while Wade was in prison.
Keita also helped put Epstein in contact with her uncle, president of Ivory Coast since May 2011, and his team.
“He thought you were a very interesting person! ... they were all very happy to have you here,” she wrote on January 20, 2012, after the financier’s visit to Abidjan.
She had booked him the “ministerial suite” of the luxury Hotel Ivoire for that trip.
Ahead of the visit, Epstein had said he hoped to see “very pretty girls there, as well as interesting places.”
“You will!” Keita replied.
Emails show Keita, a former model, at least once sent photos and the phone number of a young woman to Epstein.
He then met this woman at the Ritz hotel in Paris on August 31, 2011.
“ask sadia to send pictures of her sister. i prefer under 25,” Epstein wrote to Keita after the meeting.
Now the deputy general director of Ivorian petroleum stocks company GESTOCI, Keita also appears in a February 2019 will in which Epstein requested that debts owed to him by a number of people be canceled upon his death.
AFP received no response to its requests for comment from both Keita and the Ivorian presidency, or from Karim Wade, who was contacted through his entourage.
The mere mention of a person’s name in the Epstein files does not in itself imply wrongdoing.
