Moscow and Tehran are confidently moving along the path of strategic cooperation

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian paid a working visit to Moscow. Although earlier, announcing this visit, the Iranian Foreign Ministry stated that the Moscow negotiating agenda includes "a wide range of multilateral cooperation between the two countries”, Tehran nevertheless highlighted the prospects of the negotiations on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on the Iranian Nuclear Program (JCPOA) taking place in Vienna.

The whole point, and even the intrigue, was that there was a pause in the negotiations in Vienna, which arose after Russia's demand that the United States give a written commitment not to extend the sanctions regime to the opportunities for Russian-Iranian cooperation that open after the signing of the agreement.

However, Moscow had its own version of what was happening, related to the demands made by the United States to Iran. But it so happened that Moscow's conditions were widely publicised, and for some reason the US’ demands to Iran were hushed up by Washington and Tehran.

Moreover, Moscow's statement was made two weeks after the beginning of the Ukrainian crisis, which gave the situation an additional political burden. As a result, European parties to the Vienna negotiations, Germany, France and the United Kingdom (E3) and the coordinator of the negotiations the EU's Josep Borrell, the accused Russia in the submission of claims not related to the conditions of the JCPOA.

In this regard, there were even statements about the possibility of signing some new nuclear agreement without Russia's participation, which, first of all, introduced Russian-Iranian relations, in the words of one Iranian expert, "into a state of unnecessary confrontation or misunderstanding”.

This is how the diplomatic multi-way campaign began to unwind, many of the plots of which remain unknown for the time being. Abdollahian contacted his Qatari counterpart Sheikh Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, after which he spoke by phone with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Abdollahian also contacted Oman's Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Al Busaidi by phone. And only after that he went on a visit to Moscow, where he met with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov and "discussed with him the Vienna talks and the war in Ukraine”.

What is behind this, except for the "illumination" of the indirect contact of the Iranian Foreign Ministry with the US State Department, it is not yet possible to identify. Nevertheless, the "crescendo of Abdollahian" was performed in Moscow by Lavrov after, as the Iranian “Nour News” agency notes, "serious, frank and promising negotiations between the two countries”.

And here is the result. Lavrov said after the talks that "Moscow and Tehran are in favour of the early resumption of the full implementation of the JCPOA. Secondly, two countries are waiting for the lifting of illegal US sanctions against Iran and the exorbitant US demands on Iran."

Thirdly, Lavrov said that the information about the possibility of the United States to propose a new agreement for Iran without Russia's participation is "another attempt to shift from a sore head to a healthy one”, and that "Russia has no exorbitant demands in the context of the JCPOA”.

Finally, the most intriguing thing: Lavrov said that Russia has received written guarantees from the United States, and they are included in the text of the agreement itself on the resumption of the JCPOA. Thus, the pause in the negotiations in Vienna should be interrupted and they are brought to the finish line. The text of the agreement has already been agreed and has about 20 pages, which talk about further measures to return to the implementation of the nuclear agreement in its original form of the 2015 model.

But the intrigue does not disappear with this point. The fact is that the representative of the US State Department, Ned Price, stated that Washington, despite the events in Ukraine, will interact with Moscow, however, only on "fundamental" issues "for our national security”.

In the current confrontational situation due to the Ukrainian crisis, the continuation of diplomatic cooperation between the United States and Russia, the written commitments made by the Americans on the non-proliferation of the sanctions regime on cooperation between Russia and Iran in the field of trade, economic and other cooperation, leads to many reflections.

Earlier, Blinken signed a decree on the lifting of sanctions against Iran's civilian nuclear energy. In particular, sanctions were suspended against foreign companies - European, Chinese and Russian, which under the terms of the 2015 agreement were allowed to cooperate with Iran in the field of "peaceful atom".

The apparent reason for this US policy seems to be obvious: they do not want to "give Iran the green light to develop nuclear weapons”. At the same time, it is also obvious that the United States and Russia are not burning all the "diplomatic bridges" between themselves, even in the context of Moscow's special operation to denazify and demilitarise Ukraine.

And although at the moment Washington does not plan to hold a dialogue with Moscow on other issues of strategic stability, it should still take place sooner or later.

On the other hand, the United States expects that the lifting of sanctions from Tehran will lead to the entry of Iranian oil into the global competition market and will displace Russia's oil. The United States and its Western partners make no secret of the fact that they intend to play the Iranian card in their interests in order to conduct an operation on energy diversification.

Theoretically, this is possible, but on condition that the Americans begin to build relations with Iran as a subject of world politics, which, in turn, may undermine Washington's position in the Middle East, if we keep in mind the interests of Israel or Saudi Arabia.

The second point is that by increasing pressure on Russia and China, the United States may try to pull Iran out of this alliance, somehow stimulating its rapprochement. But such a broad political and diplomatic manoeuvre requires time and mastery of the art of great diplomacy, which the Americans have long lost.