 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we are joined by Prabir Purkayas and we are going to be talking about the latest developments in the Iran nuclear deal. Now the various signatories met in a virtual meeting last week and the joint commission of the JCPOA, which is the full name of the Iran deal. The joint commission is scheduled to meet on Tuesday in the city of Vienna. There's been a lot of diplomatic back and forth. Of course, the US administration hinting that it's interested in rejoining the deal, but also putting conditions. So Prabir is going to talk more about this. Prabir, so from the looks of it right now, although the meeting is a positive step, there still seems to be a bit of a stalemate because on the one hand the US wants Iran to come back completely to the deal and then it is indicated as willingness to join. Iran, of course, very clearly doesn't want any step by step process of re-entering. It wants to withdraw the sanctions first. So right now, could you maybe take us through what are the various parties in the deal and what are the positions? Well, you know, one thing is clear that if Biden administration wants Iran to concede more than what it did in the original deal, that's not good. Can it happen subsequent to normalcy being restored and normalcy being everybody coming back to the position they did before the sanctions withdrawal of the Trump administration? And of course Iran doing step by step violation as the Americans are calling it, but in reality what is laid down in the JCPOA itself as the responses that Iran can make if the other parties do not keep to the deal. So in that sense, Iran's actions have been response to violations of the JCPOA by the Americans and the Europeans inability to keep to any of the conditions they had agreed to in order to keep the deal alive, which is that we will maintain our relations, our financial deals with you will be able to set up a separate payment gateway, all that they failed. And they failed because the United States really has a stranglehold on the banking system and therefore it's very difficult for Western companies to violate the banking sanctions that the US imposes, the financial sanctions. And it means operating by any company outside the framework of the US banking system, as well as the financial system, which US really controls. So given that the Europeans failed, and that is why the Iranians then said that they will have step by step, then this action they would take which is also laid down in the agreement itself. So that's where it stands. And I don't think there is any way that US is going to get anything having stepped out of the deal, and therefore laying down the precedence that if you do violate the JCPOA, then you will benefit out of that violation. And that is something which Iran cannot agree to if it does, then every subsequent US administration can ratchet up this pressure on Iran. So Iran is not going to agree to restarting the negotiations on rejoining, accepting preconditions. Now that is going to happen. So it's a saving face that the Americans are not meeting Iranians and the JCPOA, other delegates face to face. They seem to want a parallel process where the other members will beat Iran in the formal JCPOA arrangement. The same members minus Iran will beat the Americans separately. And then both will play probably an intricate minuet by which the Americans will withdraw sanctions and Iran will step by step come in accordance with the JCPOA original agreement. So on some zero date, both would synchronize and come to the same point that is returned to the pre existing JCPOA agreement. So this seems to be a possible way forward. And this has happened because the other parts, the European countries and China and Russia have played a very constructive role in trying to put JCPOA back together again. And it is in effect putting the Humpty Dumpty back together again. So that's a difficult exercise, but it seems that this is at the moment likely to happen because if it doesn't, the threat to West Asia is really very, very significant. And I think that is worrying everybody, particularly Israel is in a rather unstable state. So this seems to be something which was of concern to other countries as well because Israel's instability is also an instability for the region. And therefore it is possible for some kind of action Israel could take, which would have more to do with Israel internal politics than its external politics. And that could destabilize the region. So I think all of these background factors have been taken into account by other countries to ask the United States that you know you say you want to come back to JCPOA. Why make these three conditions now, and let's sort of work out a way that both sides can come to zero point at some point together so that we don't live with this uncertainty that is there. This is JCPOA not being there, and Iran and Israel, the possibility of some things, you know, leading to a larger war. You know, there have been a lot of things happening on, for instance, Israel playing Putzi, trying to attack oil exports from Iran to Syria. So there have been a lot of uncertainties over there. And Israel's attacks on Iranian, what they call Iranian forces in Syria, is also one of those issues which can at any point get Russians in and then start again another regional war. So all of this I think has been of concern. And finally, we hope that this issue will see some kind of a settlement, and then we can get back on track where Iran was before Trump administration really cleared the pitch. Absolutely. Like I said, it remains to be seen if Iran after taking a very hard line position on there being no step by step approach, you know, behind the scenes agrees to it. But one interesting thing you pointed out, of course, is a role played by some of the other signatories and a key moment here was the fact that China recently signed a deal to invest nearly $400 billion in Iran over 25 years. And maybe at some level that also plays, that also paves the way forward there, you know, in some sense as a return to business, as it used to be oil, say oil trade continues or intensifies that also serves as a way whereby relations can be restored. I think there is a much bigger picture there that we need to address. That is when we visit to the region this time, had two purposes. It was of course one purpose is Iran. There's no question of that. But they also visited all the other major countries over there. They visited Saudi Arabia. They visited United Arab Emirates. They, I think also met Turkey in the region. So China has been doing a major patching up, or shall we say peace talks, major diplomatic initiatives in the region. And these are all Islamic countries who are the core of the organization of Islamic countries. You know, that's that is the organization that represent. Some of them have agreed that they believe that internal affairs of the country should be kept separate from external affairs of countries, and there should be no interference of other countries in the internal, you know, internal affairs of the country. Now it may appear at one level that this refers to for instance what happens inside Saudi Arabia, what happens inside Turkey and so on. But the reality is it also applies to these countries saying that they do not believe they have any role in the sovereign issues within China. And this is also their signal to the world that they are not on board with the United States and the Western past, the NATO past, on the issue of Uighurs, which is what they have been trying to whip up. Now we know that the Uighur issue is far from what it appears to be made out in the international media. We know that Uighurs birth rates have been actually higher than the Chinese national birth rates. There isn't any genocide. We know that in among the Uighur communities there is a section which are nomadic. And of course they are also the poorest in China today. If you look at the poverty rates, they are very low, but a large section are amongst the nomadic population in this region. So therefore China's attempt to settle them, make them change essentially from a nomadic lifestyle to a different lifestyle. Of course have been attacked by others as cultural attack and so on and so forth, but there is no way that they can be lifted out of poverty, that without doing certain basic economic changes to their lifestyle. And of course that means health, education, all of that requires a different structure than to be provided. So the fact that Uighur firm farmers who are hiring out Uighurs for their annual harvesting and so on are being looked upon as slave labor and all this kind of nonsense which is being talked about is unfortunately a campaign launched by very small sections of Uighurs who are expats who have gone, some of them settled in Turkey, the United States, the Uighur Conference as a world Uighur Congress as it has been called, which have aligned with Islamophobic right wing forces in the United States, there is enough evidence on that. You know the genocidal attack by China on the Uighurs, this is being done by NATO countries which have attacked probably the last 10 years or 15 years at least seven major Muslim majority countries starting from Afghanistan going to so on, the numbers keep on increasing. So for that we have now the major Islamic countries who are the backbone of the organization of Islamic states, countries saying that this is internal matters of countries and we will not interfere. They have earlier also gone in a delegation to this region Xinjiang and they have said we don't find anything that is anything representing what is being portrayed otherwise. So I think all of this is also making China's position much stronger that if they are doing it to a Islamic population within China, how come the Islamic countries are backing them on this kind of issues. I think that's an important issue to consider. And it also means that the regional forces, the regional countries are now in a position to settle a lot of their issues themselves. This is also the Afghan issue. Can the Afghan people, Afghan people forces and the neighboring countries sit down and solve the problem of Afghanistan and not to have a country which is 12,000 miles away. Parachute and say, we are the key decided of Afghanistan. I think this is the real geopolitical change that we are beginning to see that regional forces should come together to solve regional problems. And this is not something which a few NATO countries will decide for the whole world calling it the rule based international order, which is nothing to do the rule based international law that we know about which is national courts of court of justice or the United Nations Secretary, United Nations Security Council, which are the only legal structures which have been accepted as international law. I think that is also a message that this particular visit that you talked about when the foreign minister went to Iran signed this deal, but also his other agreement that he signed. I think all of this is a very important signal to the region that you should settle your affair yourselves and not get drawn into larger geopolitical competitions. Absolutely. And probably finally quickly, also looking at the impact of the possible restoration, or you know, even steps to normalcy, as far as JCPO is concerned what kind of impact does it have on the US coalition that it's sort to build during the Trump years we have Saudi Arabia we have Israel, you know this whole anti Iran coalition that was sort of built up the ratcheting of rhetoric, the, you know the moving of armed forces naval forces and all that. So what kind of an impact does say the return of JCPO have if it has happened. Well, it does appear that the United States is now doing what Obama had talked about the switch move to switch to an Asian axis so I think containment of China still remains the US major plan. But they've added Russia to it, Ukraine is again seeming to hot up the Donbas region, what is going to happen we don't know. So I don't think we are seeing, we are going to see a return to normalcy if there was ever one. So we have to take. So the issue really is, can Iran and Saudi Arabia sit down and talk about Yemen with these their Emily allies as well as the Emily forces which are also there. If the Saudi allies, the Yemeni allies of Saudi Arabia lose Marie, which they seem to be at the moment rather precariously placed that opens a door to Saudi Arabia as well. Therefore Saudi Arabia might be much more under pressure to negotiate a return to normalcy in Yemen. And if that happens that makes the Iran, the Saudi Arabia relationships then relatively less fought with danger and war like threats as they have been till now. So I think Saudi Arabia is also beginning to feel the heat of the Yemen war. It has been a very unpopular war has been continuing for the last five, six years. It has destroyed Yemen, but it has also taken its toll in Saudi Arabia. So given the fact that the Yemenis have shown that they can hit inside Saudi Arabia using basically designs and so on. I think all of this makes Saudi Arabia in position weaker. And maybe that they will welcome Chinese backdoor negotiations with Iran to see how the Yemen issue can also be sorted out and there is a certain normalcy in Yemen that is restored, which is destroyed really by Saudi Arabia at one point of time. So can that Yemen scenario be returned to a peaceful path? I think it's an important issue. But the important issue is that it is not NATO, it is not United States. This has to be done by actually Saudi Arabia and Iran themselves. And that if that happens, I think that's a huge change for West Asia. And can the JCPOA process what China has done, what Russians might be tacitly willing to do, maybe the biggest beneficiary will be a return to West Asia's regional politics reasserting itself and not being dictated by global politics and global power plays. And I think that would be a very important game for the region and for peace in the region. And we have also discussed this enough number of times with Afghanistan, about Afghanistan as well. It needs to be settled there and with regional forces in and around Afghanistan. They have the biggest stake in peace in Afghanistan just as the biggest stake of peace in Yemen in West Asia are the countries of West Asia. Thank you so much, Pravee, for talking to us. That's all we have time for today. Keep watching.