Iran divided between Putin and the Vienna negotiations (by L. Borsatti)
The war in Ukraine animates the political debate also in Iran, which sees involved in the conflict not only its always ambivalent relationship with Russia but also the outcome of the Vienna negotiations on the return of the US to the nuclear agreement, negotiating that yesterday they turned one year after their inception.
To talk about it extensively a recent article on Amwaj Media, giving account of a diversity of opinions more or less in line with the usual division between the moderate and reformist part of the political scenario – which was identified in the greater openness to the West of former president Hassan Rouhani – and the ultraconservative one and radical who supports the current head of government Ebrahim Raisi. The latter has been criticized by reformist exponents and media for no longer having openly condemned the Kremlin, while the conservatives are in tune with Russia’s position. Tehran’s well-established experience in evading Western sanctions – which remained the same, even after Biden’s arrival, to those imposed by its predecessor Trump – could also be of help to Moscow in turn hit by Europe’s punitive economic measures. and the US after its invasion of Ukraine. But too active support from Tehran to the Kremlin could definitively compromise the outcome of the negotiations in Vienna – which already had yet another setback suffered when it had asked that the sanctions not compromise its economic relations. with Iran.
On the official statements front, meanwhile, the Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian he said to his Hungarian counterpart Szijjarto – reports Irna – that Tehran is opposed to sanctions and wants a political solution to the conflict in Ukraine.
The reformist newspaper Ensaf News, reports Amwaj, published an interview with political analyst Foad Sadeghi, according to whom the Iranian government’s position on the war in Ukraine is a “strategic mistake” and Putin is on that “downward slope” that “is the last path of all the last dictators”. Even the centrist newspaper Jomhuri Eslami criticizes those at home who try to “sanctify Russia”, a “neighbor to the north with a bad reputation” and who is allegedly colluding with Israel to take the ongoing negotiations on the restoration of the agreement “hostage” on the 2015 Iranian nuclear power plant.
For its part, the daily Javan, linked to the Guardian Corps of the Islamic Revolution (the Pasdaran), attacked the “Western infantrymen” in Iran for criticism of the war in Ukraine, and defined the conflict as the result of the “expansion of NATO to east ”in challenge to Russia. The same newspaper went so far as to compare the uprising in Ukraine in 2014 to the “sedition” of 2009 in Iran, that is, the vast protest movement that followed the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, attributed by many to fraud.
Iran’s relations with Russia – recalls the portal based in London, which aims to expand the offer of information on the Middle East by translating local media and representing the positions of analysts often absent from the mainstream – have long been a source of internal strife, also in light of the fact that in the past Russia has long fought with Great Britain for control of Iran and its resources. Reformists and moderates normally criticize what they describe while as a growing dependence on Russia and China, following the deterioration of relations with the West, West conservatives portray Moscow and Beijing as vital partners in balancing the hostility of the United States and its allies.
Many in the Islamic Republic still argue that Moscow cannot be trusted. A political analyst, also on Ensaf News, speculated that Russia gave the green light to recent Israeli attacks on Iranian targets in Syria, following Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s trip to Moscow in early March.
Ultimately, the crucial question would be the extent to which Iran could offer support to Russia in circumventing sanctions. Tehran seems willing to assist Moscow – argues Amwaj -, any help could ease the sanctions that should support the return to the 2015 agreement. Raisi is in line with the vision of the Guide Ali Khamenei which according to Iran should expand ties with the Eastern powers and has pursued “strategic” relations with Russia since taking office last August. The challenge for his government, however, will now be – he concludes – to balance ties with Russia with the economic benefits expected from a successful outcome of the talks in Vienna.