The United States and Iran continue to try to overcome differences in drafting a document that could end the conflict between the two countries. Despite progress in negotiations this Monday (25), the Iranian nuclear program and American sanctions remain significant points of impasse.
During participation in the CNN 360°International analyst Fernanda Magnotta said that any agreement signed at this time must be fragile.
In the analyst’s assessment, the eventual agreement reflects the fact that neither side believes that a prolonged war is sustainable. “The feeling I have is that any agreement that is signed at this moment will be fragile because it does not address the deeper points, which are in fact difficult to accommodate,” he stated.
She added that the agreement will most likely be worse than previous versions already possible in the past, and that the central issue is not only military, but also geoeconomic — involving the circulation of oil in the Strait of Hormuz and its impacts on the global energy chain, inflation and market stability.
Both sides
According to Kevin Liptak, reporter for CNN At the White House, negotiations continue on the final agreement. The presence of an Iranian delegation in Qatar raised hopes that Qatari mediators could unlock the process, but the expectation, at least on the American side, is that the negotiations will continue for a few more days.
Liptak also highlighted the difficulty of obtaining the Iranian supreme leader’s approval for changes to the text, in part because it remains in an unknown location.
The two sides present contradictory versions of what has already been agreed. The Americans say Iran has agreed in principle to give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
The Iranians, in turn, deny that the nuclear program has been discussed in detail. At the same time, Iran is demanding more specifics about what sanctions the US is willing to lift and what assets would be unfrozen. The American response is that any financial relief will only come after concrete progress — the phrase that is repeated on the American side is “no dust, no dollars”, in reference to the stock of enriched uranium.
Positive side in negotiations
“The positive side of this conversation is that there is still dialogue and that, if there is dialogue, there is some hope of articulation in the technical and diplomatic fields,” said Magnotta. However, she assesses that the parties are still far from pacifying the terms of the agreement.
Magnotta highlighted that the negotiation rhythms are different between the two sides. “The Americans are in a rush to end the conflict and therefore are in a rush to find reasonable terms to declare some kind of victory, while the Iranians are in no rush,” he explained.
According to her, Iran benefited from the bottlenecks revealed in the Strait of Hormuz and, as a result, gained bargaining power that it did not previously possess.
The analyst highlighted that relations between the two countries have not changed structurally over 15 or 20 years. The Americans want to contain , while Iran insists on its right to develop this technology and refuses to ship its uranium reserves out of the country without sanctions being lifted.
“It’s an impasse that has been going on for some administrations on both sides and I don’t think it’s being properly addressed at the moment,” said Magnotta.
