TEHRAN — An international affairs expert said on Tuesday that the Westerners are trying to use the Zionist regime as a complement to play the role of a bad cop to “validate” the regime’s military threats against Iran as talks are underway in Vienna to lift illegal sanctions on Iran.

However, Seyed Mostafa Khoshcheshm said, this has had no effect on the negotiations.

In an interview with IRNA published on Tuesday, Khoshcheshm said if Paris does not try to derail the talks in Vienna, the negotiating parties may start substantive talks.

“As it was discussed before, most of Iran’s demands are met in the new draft proposals and minor details need to be ironed out in the coming days. It seems that if France does not continue to derail the talks and portray itself as a bad cop, the draft will be completed and substantive negotiations will begin a few days apart.”

The new round of talks in Vienna started on Thursday. By Monday, Iran’s chief negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani held talks with the representatives of Russia, China, France and Mora, the European Union political director who is coordinating the talks.

The expert added that in this regard the people are likely to see the bargaining and confrontation of the negotiators of Iran, China and Russia with the other side, i.e. the European and American ones.

“The Americans will definitely raise their maximum demands during the substantive negotiations,” he predicted.

He went on to say that it seems that there has been a division of labor between the West on the nuclear issue and sanctions, saying, “The West, especially France, is stricter on nuclear issues, and the United States is tougher on sanctions.”

According to Khoshcheshm, what is clear is that the Iranian side has a lot of tools to put pressure on the West, and it can still use this tool more than ever to persuade the European and American sides to cooperate in the negotiations.

Emphasizing that the Western side has tried to put pressure on Iran through blame, propaganda games, and the good cop bad cop routine, he said direct obstructions by France and two European countries have increased the psychological mind game.

“These pressures are psychological, virtual, and in the form of propaganda, but what Iran has at its disposal are real pressure tools that are not limited to nuclear areas. Iran can increase its leverage in the missile and regional spheres, forcing the United States to fulfill its obligations and lift sanctions, both JCPOA-related and post-JCPOA,” he remarked.

Referring to the role of the Israeli regime in the negotiation process, the expert said Tel Aviv played the role of a bad and threatening cop from the beginning of the negotiations and even before the talks.

“During the last two or three years, the American side has been weakened in the field of military threat and lost the credibility of its military threat in the strategy of containment when trying to confront Iran using the stick and carrot policy. The Zionist regime then tried to validate these military threats through threats and verbal propaganda,” he added.

The expert on international affairs continued by saying that with the start of negotiations in the first week and the surprise of the Western side regarding the initiative of Iran and the extremism of the Israeli regime in making military threats, this regime could not play the role of the bad cop convincingly and this bad cop failed due to extremism and “went out of the equation”. 

“So the role was given to three European countries, in turn, the United Kingdom, Germany and more than the others, France,” he noted.

Khoshcheshm added that now, as Iran and P4+1 approach the substantive negotiations, the Zionist regime is once again being used as a supplementary to play the role of the bad cop and to validate military threats in order to pressure Iran to give concessions in the negotiations.

The expert concluded by saying that with the recent exercise of the armed forces of Iran, Tehran sent a crystal-clear signal that the threats of the Zionist regime are not valid at all and will not affect the Vienna talks. 

“In fact, Iran can use missiles and regional weapon, reverse the trend and force the West to give concessions,” he opined. 

With the Vienna talks kinking in again, Iran has moved to voice its expectations from other parties, especially the European trio – France, Germany and Britain (E3). During the last round, the E3, particularly France, played an unconstructive role in the talks, preventing the negotiators, at least in one case, from hammering out a document that was to serve as the basis for the next round of talks. 

The first round of talks under President Ebrahim Raisi began in late November. Since then, two rounds have been held with the current round being the third or based on the European perception, the eighth.

During the two last rounds, Iran presented two proposals on nuclear and sanctions-related measures despite a Western accusation of not being serious and playing for time.

The Europeans first rejected the Iranian proposals though they were drafted in strict conformity with the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). But then were forced to incorporate the Iranian proposals into the two final documents reached at the end of the last round.

A source familiar with the talks told Iran’s state news agency IRNA that France played a “disruptive” role in the previous round. According to the source, when the French delegation was absent from the talks due to France’s participation in the G7 ministerial summit in Liverpool, “significant progress” was made on preparing the drafts. But the

French representative returned to the talks after a two-day absence and “a disruptive trend started again,” according to the source.

The source said the drafts were acceptable to all parties but the French negotiators opposed the drafts and “the course of the talks was disrupted.”

In addition to the French unconstructive role, the Europeans, together with the U.S., sought to create a sense of urgency by announcing self-imposed deadlines. Iran, however, said that it will not fall into the trap of “factitious deadlines.” Quoting a source with knowledge about the talks, IRNA said Iran’s negotiating team will stay in Vienna as long as there is a need.