SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
President Trump wants to restart nuclear negotiations with Iran. He sent a letter to Iran's foreign minister this week delivered through a senior Emirati official from Abu Dhabi. But the president has also levied new sanctions against Iran and said that military options are still possible. Iranian officials immediately rebuffed the gesture and, on Friday, met with China and Russia to discuss their nuclear program. We're joined now by Ali Vaez, director of the International Crisis Group's Iran project. Thanks so much for being with us.
ALI VAEZ: Great to be with you, Scott.
SIMON: The ayatollah, Khamenei, noted in his speech this week that the U.S. pulled out of the nuclear agreement during President Trump's first term. Do Iranians feel the Trump administration really wants a deal?
VAEZ: You know, Scott, I have a sense of deja vu looking at developments in the past few weeks in the sense that just like in his first term, President Trump has expressed keenness for a deal with Iran over its nuclear program, contending that he does not seek regime change and wants to make Iran prosperous again. But his administration has pushed forward a pressure-centric policy, which seems to be aimed at making Iran broke again. And this is why, despite the fact that the Iranians had initially, after November 5, expressed interest in engagement with President Trump, I think that has now given its place to defiant statements of rejecting talks under duress.
SIMON: What about the effect of sanctions?
VAEZ: Look, there is no doubt that sanctions, along with mismanagement and corruption have created a disastrous economic situation in Iran. I mean, they're literally struggling to keep the lights on. The currency has lost a significant amount of its value just in the course of the past few weeks, with the markets losing hope of any possible economic reprieve down the road. But at the end of the day, you know, the Iranian economy is not on the verge of collapse, and the Iranians over the past few decades have learned how to circumvent U.S. sanctions and survive.
SIMON: How do you see this meeting between Iran and Russian and Chinese officials in Beijing?
VAEZ: So the Iranians believe that Russia and China are on their side, and they need to make sure that they're on the same page in case that there are in the future negotiations again with the West, whether it's with the U.S. and the Europeans or just with the Europeans. And they also want to make sure that Russia and China are on their side, given the prospect of the Europeans potentially snapping back the U.N. sanctions, which were suspended after the nuclear deal with Iran was struck in 2015.
SIMON: And we should explain that France, the U.K. and Germany are also signatories.
VAEZ: Exactly. And those powers can still return those sanctions by mid this year because the resolution is going to expire in October. So there is literally a ticking time bomb in this process, which is what makes it different than President Trump's first term in office.
SIMON: Iran maintains its nuclear program is for research purposes. Is there a concern that if tensions once again are heightened, they will feel compelled to develop a nuclear weapons program?
VAEZ: Well, this is a dual-use technology. And reality is that Iranians can now produce enough fissile material for a single nuclear weapon in a matter of days, and they have a stockpile sufficient for an arsenal of nuclear warheads. And they're constantly adding to that stockpile. From there, depending on how crude or advanced the device the Iranians might seek, it might be as little as a few months before Iran can claim itself to be the world's 10th nuclear weapon state.
SIMON: And in the minute we have left, what might President Trump do in a second term to bring Iran back to the table?
VAEZ: I think you know, again, just like in the first term, they're talking past each other rather than with each other. And the reality is that it really boils down to two simple realizations that if they fail to have, it's not going to work. For Iran, it really boils down to a simple fact that it would not negotiate with a gun to its head. And for President Trump, it really boils down to his desire for personal diplomacy and direct diplomacy. If they get that right, the style right, I think they can - they have a chance on substance.
SIMON: Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group. Thank you so much for speaking with us today, sir.
VAEZ: My pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
