WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken dismissed as “irrelevant” Russian demands for guarantees that new sanctions linked to Ukraine will not affect Moscow’s rights under a reworked Iran nuclear deal.
With the parties to the Iran agreement, which the US abandoned in 2018, now seemingly close to a new accord, Blinken rejected fresh demands voiced Saturday by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
The sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine “have nothing to do with the Iran nuclear deal,” Blinken said on CBS talk show “Face the Nation.”
They “just are not in any way linked together, so I think that’s irrelevant,” he said, speaking from Moldova, a small country on Ukraine’s southwest border.
Blinken added it was not only in America’s interest but Russia’s as well that Iran not be able “to have a nuclear weapon or the capacity to produce a weapon on very, very short order.”
The latest Russian reservations, coming amid the intense crisis over Ukraine, threaten hopes that an Iran agreement could be wrapped up quickly.
Iran and the United Nations nuclear watchdog had announced tentative agreement early Saturday on an approach for resolving issues crucial to reviving the country’s 2015 nuclear accord with world powers.
Rafael Grossi, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said in Vienna that while the UN agency and Iran had yet to settle “a number of important matters,” they had now “decided to try a practical, pragmatic approach” to overcome them.
However, Grossi said there was “no artificial deadline.”
Both US and British officials said late in the week that negotiators in the Vienna talks were close to a possible deal, while cautioning that some issues remained to be settled.
But Lavrov said Saturday that Moscow, itself slapped with severe sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine, needed guarantees from Washington before backing the nuclear deal.
He said Russia wanted written guarantees that Ukraine-related sanctions “will not in any way harm our rights to free, fully fledged trade and economic and investment cooperation, military-technical cooperation with Iran.”
Russia is party to the Vienna talks along with Britain, China, France and Germany. The United States is participating indirectly.
Moscow is expected to play a role in implementing any fresh deal with Iran, for example by receiving shipments of enriched uranium from Iran.
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