Iran Regime Experts: We’re Caught in a Pinned Position
NCRI – Statements made by European officials over the past month suggest they’ve adopted a new policy with regard to the Iranian regime and the United States, in such a way that it could significantly change the situation for Iran.
“We knew that Trump would seek to align Europe with his policies and would put all his efforts towards that end. Nonetheless, we never took a positive step forward. We not only kept standing where we were, but we failed in some areas as well, allowing Europeans to move closer to Trump”, says regime’s former diplomat Ali Khoram in his interview with state-run Fararou website.
Also in this regard, regime’s international affairs analyst ‘Ali Bigdeli’ points to Europeans’ change in behavior, saying “the nuclear deal is different from what Germany and France have asked us to do. This was first raised by German FM, who laid out three conditions for Iran, with the first one being related to Iran’s human rights record, the second one requiring Iran to confine its forces within its own borders and the third one being related to Iran’s ballistic missile program. He specifically underlined that the three conditions are considered part of the nuclear deal.”
Bigdeli then asserted “it won’t be difficult to agree to part of the conditions. But withdrawing forces from Syria, Iraq, and other countries and confining them to our own borders is quite different and there would be many obstacles in the process. It would be too difficult for regime officials to accede to withdrawing from such countries and being confined to our own borders. The fact, however, is that we have no other option as Iran is currently caught in a pinned position and needs to accept Europeans’ triple conditions if it wants to move forward.”
Meanwhile, the Washington Post has quoted a US high-ranking official, who has a hand in making US policies towards the Iranian regime, as saying “the US president has set out six issues for cooperation with Europe to form a unified front against the Iranian regime. This adds to the previous three conditions such issues like the regime’s human rights violations, cyber threats, and the Revolutionary Guards’ financial operations.”
It looks like the White House, which had previously made the nuclear deal conditional on fixing its sunset clauses and curbing Iranian regime’s ballistic missile program, has now added to its previous conditions the issues of regime’s human rights violations, cyber threats, and the Revolutionary Guards’ financial operations.
State-run Kayhan newspaper on February 25 writes in this regard”the fact that a number of European diplomats are busy trying to prevent Trump from walking away from the nuclear deal suggests a convergence between Europe and the United States following months of their disagreement over Iran.”
Meanwhile, the Revolutionary Guards’ Javan newspaper points to comments made by Araghchi, Zarif’s deputy, in London, writing “we should be careful not to play in Trump’s court”.