Iran and Western Powers Clash Over Why Nuclear Talks Failed

Less than a week before the next round of nuclear talks in Geneva, it is still not clear why the last round failed, and who exactly walked away from the deal. Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, has laid the blame on the Western powers, saying they were divided. He says he has little to do now but wait for the world powers to get their act together.

“It’s the United States which should get their partners on board, not Iran,” said Mohammad Ali Shabani, a political analyst with close ties to Mr. Zarif. “From the information that is available, what was on the table was an American proposal. It was France that ripped into it, not Iran.”

It is a message tailored to his domestic audience, but not everyone here is buying it. Whatever happened behind closed doors, analysts say, Mr. Zarif had little choice but to take this line.

High hopes on all sides were shattered last weekend when Iran and the world powers failed to reach an interim agreement that could have led to reining in Iran’s nuclear program, which the West fears is a cover for producing nuclear weapons.

Secretary of State John Kerry said Mr. Zarif and his team balked after having been faced with a unified proposal that went further than the Iranian leadership was prepared to go. Mr. Zarif fired back on Twitter, hinting that the Americans had failed to get their ally France behind their own proposal, allowing France to sabotage the deal.

Following Mr. Zarif’s lead, Iranian politicians, clerics, commanders and state news media outlets have been criticizing France. Students are threatening to occupy the French Embassy in Tehran and politicians are calling for a boycott of French products — not that there are very many because of the sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear program.

“France is playing a silly role, pushing the world away from peace, in order to represent some timid and cunning Arab and regional countries who are afraid to face Iran themselves,” said Amir Mohebbian, an adviser close to the Iranian leadership.

While Mr. Zarif aimed most of his criticism at France, he may have done so, analysts say, to placate or undercut various domestic audiences, beginning with the millions who voted for President Hassan Rouhani and his moderate government — one that promised to end the cold war with the West and relieve the economy of the sanctions imposed over the nuclear program.

But he also has to worry about hard-liners, many of whom think the talks are a fool’s errand and have warned that Iran’s opponents will try to trick or coerce it into a bad deal.

Generally, even conservatives who are suspicious of the talks have been sticking to the unofficial government order not to discuss the details. But Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor in chief of the hard-line newspaper Kayhan, has been leading a relentless campaign against the talks. On Monday Mr. Shariatmadari, who was appointed by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and is a close adviser to him, warned the negotiators not to be “naïve.”

His newspaper printed what it said were six demands by the world powers, which each individually would be enough to enrage Iran’s hard-line factions.

Citing “reliable sources,” Mr. Shariatmadari said the world powers want Iran to stop enriching uranium up to 20 percent, which is technical steps away from weapons-grade uranium. He wrote that Iran would have to drastically reduce its 18,000 uranium centrifuges, mothball the heavy-water reactor in Arak and close the uranium enrichment bunker near the city of Fordo.

In return, “America and its allies” proposed to lift sanctions on vehicles, gold and precious stones and petrochemicals, while releasing some Iranian assets that have been blocked in China, India and South Korea, Mr. Shariatmadari wrote.

He argued that the White House was refusing to compromise, instead engaging in “ransom-seeking behavior” and “illegal expectations” in order to block progress. He argued that the United States and France were actually playing a “good cop, bad cop” routine.

“The French foreign minister hurriedly arrived in Geneva, and in a preplanned move played the role of the ‘bad cop’ in the talks,” Mr. Shariatmadari wrote. “Unfortunately, some of our naïve friends also see that fabricated role as real.”

As Mr. Kerry defended the talks to a skeptical Congress on Wednesday, Mr. Zarif attended a session to commemorate the death of the most revered saint of Shiite Muslims, Imam Hussein, who fought a hopeless battle 1,400 years ago when he chose to die for his beliefs.

Mr. Rouhani, who has been less visible in recent weeks, told Parliament on Saturday that no matter what happened, Iran would never be the loser in the talks.

“The least that could be expected is that the people of the world will be convinced that Iran is not being pertinacious and wants to face the world with logic,” he said. “At least the world will believe that the Islamic republic of Iran, as it has always stated, is not after mass destruction weapons. Therefore, the results of negotiations will be to the benefit of both sides. This is what we call a win-win game.”