TEHRAN (Bazaar) –Nader Entessar, Professor Emeritus of Political Science from university of South Alabama says that so far it is the EU and its official intermediaries that asserted that the draft of an agreement has been finalized;
“The American officials have not said so. The EU's enthusiasm is somewhat premature at this time,” Entessar told Bazaar.
Following is the full text of the Bazaar interview with Professor Entessar:
Bazaar: A new round of Vienna talks has ended. What is your assessment of this round of negotiations?
Entessar: It was a rather brief round. This may indicate that the major points of disagreement have been addressed and only a few ones remain. But the remaining points may be significant ones that Iran and the US still need to work on. In other words, we still do not have a full agreement in place.
Bazaar: Western sources announce that the final text has been prepared in this round of negotiations and a decision should be made about it. Meanwhile, Iran says that the text is not final and there are still some unsolved issues. What is the reason for this huge difference in views?
Entessar: I tend to agree with Iran's assessment of this issue. Also, so far it is the EU and its official intermediaries that asserted that the draft of an agreement has been finalized; the American officials have not said so. The EU's enthusiasm is somewhat premature at this time.
Bazaar: According to the Wall Street Journal, there will be no mention of safeguards in the European draft. How do you think the dispute will be resolved in this field?
Entessar: It is really difficult to decouple IAEA's safeguard issues from a new draft agreement unless there are changes in the original text of the JCPOA. For example, the original JCPOA allows the parties to bring up safeguard concerns in a meeting of the joint committee of the JCPOA. If Iran is deemed to be non-compliant with the IAEA demands, then it can be sanctioned with a majority vote of the JCPOA members. In other words, if specific changes in the language of the 2015 JCPOA agreement are not made to separate IAEA's safeguard reports or concerns from the new draft of a new possible agreement, safeguard issues cannot be separated from a new agreement by simply not mentioning them. All the loopholes need to be identified and closed now in order to avoid problems Iran faced with the original JCPOA.
Bazaar: According to the agreements that have been made in this round of negotiations, what is the chance of reaching an agreement?
Entessar: The public has not been privy to the agreements that have been reached in principle so far. What we know is based on Western media reporting that may be speculative at best and disinformation at worst. I believe the impasse has not been broken and there is still work to be done if a new agreement is reached.
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