PARIS: France warned Tuesday that further delays could stymie a revived nuclear agreement between world powers and Iran, with the West at loggerheads with Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, while Washington said it would cede nothing to Moscow.
Moscow is a direct party — along with Britain, China, France and Germany — to the ongoing talks in Vienna aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear deal to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
Washington is participating indirectly, as former president Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement in 2018.
“We are very close to a deal,” but Paris is “very worried about risks that further delays could weigh on the chances,” a foreign ministry spokeswoman told reporters in an apparent reference to Russia’s demands for extra guarantees.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has demanded written assurances from Washington that massive Western sanctions imposed on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine will not affect its economic and military cooperation with Tehran.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said such demands are “irrelevant.”
Russia said Monday that all world powers must have “equal rights” if the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), is revived.
Sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine “have nothing to do with the Iran nuclear deal,” Blinken said Sunday.
France “calls on all other parties to adopt a responsible approach,” the foreign ministry spokeswoman said Tuesday.
At a hearing on Capitol Hill later Tuesday, when asked if Washington had provided Moscow with the written guarantees requested, US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland was clear: “No.”
“We’re not negotiating with Russia vis-a-vis Iran,” Nuland said. “Russia is trying to up the ante and broaden its demands with regard to the JCPOA and we are not playing ‘Let’s Make A Deal’.”
“There may be some in Russia seeking to get extra benefits for their cooperation and participation in seeking to get Iran back into the JCPOA, but they are not going to be successful,” she added.
Nuland told lawmakers that Russia has “relatively small trade relations” with Iran, and that its participation was more based on its own national security interests.
She said negotiators in Vienna had “nearly completed” a deal and rejected calls by some to halt talks because of the war in Ukraine.
“The last thing we need on top of Putin’s bloody war is a nuclear-armed Iran,” she said.
Iran’s official IRNA news agency meanwhile said that Tehran’s top negotiator Ali Bagheri would travel to Vienna early Wednesday “to continue the talks.”
France says ‘worried’ about ‘delays’ to Iran nuclear deal
https://arab.news/cq9en
France says ‘worried’ about ‘delays’ to Iran nuclear deal
- Iran’s official IRNA news agency said that Tehran’s top negotiator Ali Bagheri would travel to Vienna early Wednesday “to continue the talks”
UN rights chief shocked by ‘unbearable’ Darfur atrocities
- Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur
PORT SUDAN: Nearly three years of war have put the Sudanese people through “hell,” the UN’s rights chief said on Sunday, blasting the vast sums spent on advanced weaponry at the expense of humanitarian aid and the recruitment of child soldiers.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by a conflict between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that has left tens of thousands of people dead and around 11 million displaced.
Speaking in Port Sudan during his first wartime visit, UN Human Rights commissioner Volker Turk said the population had endured “horror and hell,” calling it “despicable” that funds that “should be used to alleviate the suffering of the population” are instead spent on advanced weapons, particularly drones.
More than 21 million people are facing acute food insecurity, and two-thirds of Sudan’s population is in urgent need of humanitarian aid, according to the UN.
In addition to the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis, Sudan is also facing “the increasing militarization of society by all parties to the conflict, including through the arming of civilians and recruitment and use of children,” Turk added.
He said he had heard testimony of “unbearable” atrocities from survivors of attacks in Darfur, and warned of similar crimes unfolding in the Kordofan region — the current epicenter of the fighting.
Testimony of these atrocities must be heard by “the commanders of this conflict and those who are arming, funding and profiting from this war,” he said.
Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur.
“We must ensure that the perpetrators of these horrific violations face justice regardless of the affiliation,” Turk said on Sunday, adding that repeated attacks on civilian infrastructure could constitute “war crimes.”
He called on both sides to “cease intolerable attacks against civilian objects that are indispensable to the civilian population, including markets, health facilities, schools and shelters.”
Turk again warned on Sunday that crimes similar to those seen in El-Fasher could recur in volatile Kordofan, where the RSF has advanced, besieging and attacking several key cities.
Hundreds of thousands face starvation across the region, where more than 65,000 people have been displaced since October, according to the latest UN figures.
