The Iranian side received a remarkable praise from U.S. President Donald Trump before entering into any planned dialogue on signing a new nuclear deal.
President Trump said at a joint press conference with his French counterpart Macron after the G7 summit, “I really believe that Iran can be a great nation[.] But they can’t have nuclear weapons. O.K.?” He added that they had to be “good players” in order to agree to a meeting with them.
So the man in the White House is ready to play the game if there are “good” Iranian players. Anyone with a simple knowledge of the Trumpian-style “deals”, knows that they have basic conditions.
The first is to give president Trump an absolute starring role. Trump is preparing for a second term. Winning the deal is one of the key cards in the election.
Trump does not place his trust in the success of the other deal, or the deal of the century for the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, which may not be accepted by several Middle Eastern parties. So Trump is preparing an alternative deal to boost his chances of winning the election.
Also, the praise for Iran is not the first — it has been repeated recently. It is probably an attempt by President Trump to attract the arrogant mullahs’ regime.
President Trump knows that some of the praises on his part will melt the apparent intransigence of iran’s supreme leader toward dialogue with the United States and the Trump administration in particular.
Such praises are sound bites that mullahs can well employ in their domestic consumer propaganda discourse. The regime may use them to convince their supporters that the”Great Satan“was brought to its knees.
Phrases for domestic consumption do not harm the U.S. president. Each party has the opportunity to market what it sees as the justifications to convince its local audience of the deal.
There are now almost certainly behind-the-scenes talks about a planned nuclear deal with Iran.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said he had”constructive“talks with President Macron and his French counterpart at the G7 summit in Biarritz. The French president confirmed that he had informed President Trump of his plan to invite the Iranian foreign minister, after discussions with Iranian officials about possible solutions.
There are other important indicators. Zarif made a surprise visit to the summit, so there was something to talk about. Iranian answers to certain points were needed to be communicated to the U.S. president before the consultation was completed to reach final understandings and conclusions.
More importantly, President Macron said he believed that the”terms of the meeting“between Trump and Rouhani”in the next few weeks“had been put in place.
”Nothing has been determined yet and things are still fragile. But technical discussions have made some real progress.“However, the reality is that President Macron is not naïve. He would not have announced a forthcoming meeting between Presidents Trump and Rouhani unless there was an agreement with Trump on the outlines of the meeting.
Trump himself has previously embarrassed President Macron by saying that he is not authorized to speak on behalf of the United States with Iran. So the President of France will not venture into a statement and then lose his credibility with a tweet from Trump denying this possibility.
It is also clear that President Macron succeeded in convincing the Iranian side to accept the idea of holding a summit meeting with President Trump.”I have informed Rouhani that if he agrees to a meeting with Trump, I am convinced that an agreement can be reached,“the French president said.
This is indeed likely, because President Trump himself has deliberated statements on unclear aspects of a planned agreement with the Iranian side. He said Iran could get economic assistance through facilities in the form of a letter of credit secured by its oil.
Asked about French President Emmanuel Macron’s reference to”economic compensation“for Iran in exchange for changes to the 2015 nuclear deal, Trump said that the Iranians”may need some money to get them over a very rough patch, and if they do need money, and it would be secured by oil — which to me is great security, and they have a lot of oil.“
It may be understood that he agrees to give Iran financial compensation in exchange for changes to the 2015 nuclear deal. This talk is about technical details but it is very important. These details are what matters to the Iranian side to justify its retreat from its hardline positions and again accept the bitter pill to swallow.
It is clear so far that the deal scenario is going along some main lines. The most important is to compensate Iran financially for losses to its economy as a result of U.S. sanctions. The discussion is now about the details of compensation and the mechanisms for its implementation.
President Trump said,”We are really talking about a letter of credit. It would be from numerous countries[.] It would be paid back immediately and very quickly.“
The discussions, therefore, have made great strides in going into the details and implementation mechanisms. The discussions are not the result of the G7 meetings, but they began a long time ago and crystallized into the formulas discussed in France in the presence of Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif with the French mediator.
What remains seems to be a green light for President Rouhani from the Supreme Leader to meet his U.S. counterpart. It also remains to be determined when and where the talks will take place. Paris will be one of the most important possible stops of the talks, to thank the French mediator for its great efforts.
There may, of course, be other candidates for the summit, including Arab countries that played a role in mediation and others in Europe.
