No one has been able to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, but could Russia help end the war in Iran?
Russia is one of the rare powers that has very close relationships with both Iran and Israel, and both Iran and Israel trust Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin has spoken to both Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since the war began. Putin, who has condemned the Israeli strikes on Iran, told Pezeshkian that Russia has “specific initiatives aimed at resolving the situation around the Iranian nuclear program.” He stressed the importance to Netanyahu of “resuming the negotiations and resolving any issues pertaining to Iran’s nuclear programme exclusively via political and diplomatic means.” Putin then “expressed willingness to provide mediation so as to prevent further escalation.” The Kremlin says that Russia “will maintain close contact with the authorities of both Iran and Israel with a view to resolving the present situation.”
Before the war began, Putin also spoke to U.S. President Donald Trump. On June 4, Trump posted that he had discussed Iran with Putin on a phone call. He said that he believes that Putin was “in agreement” that “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.” When Trump told him that “time is running out on Iran’s decision pertaining to nuclear weapons, which must be made quickly.” Putin “suggested that he will participate in the discussions with Iran and that he could, perhaps, be helpful in getting this brought to a rapid conclusion.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “We have close partner relations with Tehran” and that Putin is “ready to use this level of partnership with Tehran in order to facilitate and contribute to the negotiations that are taking place to resolve the issue of the Iranian nuclear dossier.”
A week later, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Russia could provide practical help as well as diplomatic help “through the export of excess nuclear material produced by Iran and its subsequent adaptation to the production of fuel for reactors.” That would remove highly enriched uranium from Iran and return it as lower enriched uranium for civilian energy and medical uses.
On June 14, Putin and Trump spoke again. Putin again expressed “the readiness of the Russian side to engage in possible mediation efforts.”
The current conflict is not the first time that the Iran nuclear issue and Russia have intersected. In the first set of nuclear talks that led to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal with Iran, the Obama administration won Russian approval for sanctions on Iran by making three major concessions, including lifting sanctions on Russia’s military complex. Another of the concessions is crucial to the war in Ukraine today and has been almost totally forgotten by history. In 2010, in return for Russian approval of sanctions on Iran, the U.S. promised Russia, once again, to stop NATO expansion. They also signed the New START nuclear disarmament treaty: the same treaty that Ukraine’s recent drone strike on Russia’s strategic bombers put in dangerous jeopardy.
It is also not the first time that Russia has offered to help by swapping enriched uranium, taking low enriched uranium out of Iran and returning the higher enriched uranium isotopes needed for medical purposes for kidney, heart and cancer patients. On October 1, 2009, Iranian and American diplomats met directly for the first time since the revolution in Iran overthrew the Shah. As Trita Parsi reports in Losing an Enemy, the U.S. presented Iran with a proposal for a nuclear fuel swap. 1,200 kilograms of low enriched uranium would be shipped from Iran to Russia for reprocessing. It would then be sent to a third country to be turned into the fuel pads that would be sent back to Iran for medical uses. Iran would have the benefits of highly enriched uranium while the world would know they were not enriching it themselves. Iran would be enriching uranium and have the benefits of uranium while the world ensured there was no pathway to a nuclear weapon.
Iran agreed to the deal in principle, but it fell apart when Iran was told they would have to transfer the 1,200 kilograms of low enriched uranium in one shipment even though it would take nine months or more to receive the 19.5% enriched uranium needed for its medical reactors. Iran would have been emptied of enriched uranium. When Iran offered the counterproposal that the low enriched uranium be sent out in batches in a “simultaneous exchange” for the more highly enriched uranium, the U.S. ignored the offer. Iran discovered the trick and turned it down.
Nonetheless, by 2015 the JCPOA nuclear deal would be struck between Iran, the United States, Russia, France, Germany and China. Parsi says that “Russia’s role in the negotiations was extremely constructive by all accounts” and that they “saved the talks on more than one occasion.” When Obama was asked in an interview with The New York Times right after the JCPOA nuclear agreement was signed, “if President Vladimir Putin of Russia was a help or a hindrance in concluding this deal,” he answered that “Russia was a help on this.” In a hopeful echo of today, Obama said he “was not sure given the strong differences we are having with Russia right now around Ukraine” whether the American-Russian cooperation in the negotiations “would sustain itself.” But, he said, “Putin and the Russian government… surprised me, and we would have not achieved this agreement had it not been for Russia’s willingness to stick with us and the other P5-Plus members.”
Since then, Russia has maintained its strong relations with Israel and has strengthened its relationship with Iran. Russia has helped save successful nuclear negotiations with Iran in the past, despite conflict with Ukraine and troubled relations with the United States. Perhaps, Russia can play a role in bringing the war between Iran and Israel to an end and, once again, be “a help” in negotiating a nuclear agreement with Iran.
Ted Snider is a regular columnist on U.S. foreign policy and history at Antiwar.com and The Libertarian Institute. He is also a frequent contributor to Responsible Statecraft and The American Conservative as well as other outlets. To support his work or for media or virtual presentation requests, contact him at tedsnider@bell.net.
