Tehran, Iran
CNN
–
Depending on who you ask, the nuclear agreement between Iran and the United States is either a non-star or near-finished transaction.
Last week, US President Donald Trump said last week that Washington was “very close” to reaching an agreement with Iran to not create “nuclear dust,” as the US president calls it.
But in Tehran, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appeared to take the possibility of a new agreement with Washington in a post attributed to him on his website on Tuesday.
On the streets of Tajlis, a rather wealthy region north of Tehran, locals told CNN that the possibility of sanctions relief in the settlement was a welcome prospect, and that they were reluctant to trust Iran’s infamous US president and that the already scrapping such a transaction was a welcome prospect.
“Of course, removing sanctions would be good for Iran,” Tehran resident Houman Garozadeh told CNN, but he added.
Sanctions against Iran strangled the country’s economy, blocked Tehran from most banks and commercial ties, leaving countries that rely on geopolitical allies like Russia and China.
While Western brands are becoming increasingly difficult to find on Iranian streets, copycat logos are common and appeal to nostalgia in the age of positive international relations.
Autos are usually made in Iran or China, and the country’s aviation industry in particular has banned licenses for purchasing invalidated aircraft and importing much-needed spare parts.
Russia and China are seeking to benefit from the use of more wary economic punishments in the West, and Moscow is said to have exchanged nuclear and space know-how to attack Ukraine with Iranian missiles and drones.
In a March opinion article in the Washington Post, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi pitched the US president about the economic promises Tehran offers.
“It is the obstacles to the US administration and Congress, not Iran, that have distressed American businesses from the trillion dollar opportunities that our access to our economy represents,” he wrote.
“It’s a game changer,” said Mariam, a Tehran resident who asked not to give her her last name, about negotiations and sanctions over the abundance of uranium. “At this point, we’re not selling anything. We can’t deal with other countries,” she told CNN.
“Please don’t talk about nonsense,” Khamenei told negotiators in a website post earlier this week, reiterating Iran’s position that Tehran will build uranium enrichment for private purposes if Iran wants.
Iranian uranium enrichment is a nuclear fuel that can be weaponized when purified to high levels, and has emerged as the biggest sticking point of discussion. Iran has insisted that it will never waive its right to enrich.
Khamenei has final say on any possible deal, and his public declaration sets the tone of Iran’s interaction with Washington.
However, the Iranian foreign minister confirmed on Wednesday that Tehran will send negotiators to a fifth round meeting with the US, which is scheduled to kick off in Rome on Friday. Once consultations reached “crunch time,” special envoy Steve Witkoff led the US side, with sources telling CNN.
“They will put Iran in the corner and there will be so much demand that Iran cannot afford, and that will fail,” Tehran resident Eskander, who asked him to go by his name alone, spoke to CNN.
Regarding Iran demands that uranium enrichment be stopped completely, he said, “After 30 years of investment, they (Iranian leaders) can’t simply say, ‘It’s all yours.”
“Look what happened to Libya. Libya gave them everything and they still bombed them,” he added. “That’s all an excuse from the West.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that Iran will reach a Libyan-style nuclear deal with the United States. In 2003, after a two-year oil embargo under Muangmar Gaddafi regulations, they dismantled the nuclear programmes of North African countries in the hopes of guiding a new era of relations with the US.
After denuclearization, Libya eventually descended into a civil war after a 2011 NATO-backed uprising defeated and killed Gaddafi. Iranian officials have long warned that similar contracts meant to weaken Iran and ultimately overthrow its regime.
As Israel escalates its bloody campaign in Gaza, Jerusalem’s eyes are also locked into talks in the US and Iran.
CNN reported Tuesday that the US intelligence agency suggests Israel is preparing to strike at Iran’s nuclear facility.
In comments Thursday, Netanyahu said there is “full coordination” with the US over Iran as the Trump administration pursues a new nuclear deal with Tehran.
He said Iran must acquire nuclear weapons and prevent it from halting uranium enrichment.
Iranians were gloomy in the face of the risk of such escalation.
If Israel bombs Iran, Tehran resident Amir Reza told CNN, “It’s going to be World War II. That’s not good.”
