Journal of International Studies

Sanctions, centrifuges and personalities aren’t the only forces pushing Iran and the U.S. toward a détente.

The recent intensive negotiations in Geneva between Iran and P5+1—the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany—over Iran’s nuclear program did not result in an interim agreement. The negotiations are to be resumed in Geneva on November 20. One of the thorniest issues is Iran’s claim that, as a signatory of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it has, under Article IV of NPT, a fundamental right to accessing all aspects of nuclear technology for peaceful uses, including uranium enrichment on its soil. So far the United States has refused to explicitly recognize Iran’s right to uranium enrichment. In her testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on October 3, Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman, who leads the U.S. delegation in the Geneva negotiations, made the following  statement : it has always been the U.S. position that that article IV of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty does not speak about the right of enrichment ...

WASHINGTON - Two pillars of the US foreign policy establishment urged Congress on Monday to forgo any new sanctions legislation directed against Iran, warning that it will risk "undermining or even shutting down" ongoing negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program.  In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, General Brent Scowcroft (retired), who served as national security adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H W Bush, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served in the same post under President Jimmy Carter, said that an interim agreement with Iran - the focus of critical talks the next round of which is to begin Wednesday in Geneva - "would advance the national security of the United States, Israel, and other partners in the region".  "More sanctions now as these unprecedented negotiations are just getting underway would reconfirm Iranians in their belief that the US is not prepared to make any agreement with the current government of Ira...

GENEVA - Against a backdrop of cautious optimism, Iran and six world powers known as the P5+1 are reconvening here for talks today and tomorrow over Tehran's nuclear program. The P5+1 comprises the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - United States, Britain, France, Russia and China - plus Germany.  "This government [of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani] has a lot riding on the resolution of the nuclear issue because it made it a campaign promise and priority," Farideh Farhi, an Iran expert at the University of Hawaii, told IPS.  She stressed that even if the Iranians were desperate for a deal, Iran won't give up certain bottom lines. "The acceptance of a bad deal is politically even more dangerous for Rouhani than not reaching an agreement," she said from Tehran in a phone interview.  One of Iran's bottom lines includes what it considers its right to peacefully enrich uranium as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Pr...

With Iran being among the major stakeholders in Syria, debates continue over the country's potential role in the settlement of the Syrian crisis. U.S.-Iran rapprochement opens new political opportunities for the Islamic Republic. Source: AP  On Monday, Oct. 7, the spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department suggested that the United States might accept Iran's participation in the long-awaited Geneva-II conference that is expected to establish Syria's transitional government. The U.N.-backed Geneva conference is an attempt by the United States and Russia to bring stakeholders to the table in order to reach a consensus on how to settle the civil war in Syria. The participants are looking to implement the Geneva Communiqué that was issued at the Geneva-I conference in June 2012. The communiqué establishes a framework for diplomatic resolution of the crisis and seeks to create a transitional government formed on the basis of mutual consent of the government and the oppos...