TEHRAN— The ongoing negotiations to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, aka 2015 nuclear deal, has reached a critical stage. Iran has sent its response to the U.S. amendments to the EU proposed text, and is awaiting the United States’ response.

Since Iran sent its response, the Western media have turned on their propaganda machine, calling Iran’s response “unconstructive”, and accusing Iran of intending to obstruct reaching an agreement. 

However, Iran has said it will remain patient. Tehran’s main demand stated in its proposal is to remove further ambiguities in the text of the agreement and avoid giving Washington loopholes.

In this regard, Mohammad Marandi, advisor to the Iranian negotiating team, tweeted on Monday, “Borrell is a U.S. ally & forgets that the reason for these negotiations are Western violations of the JCPOA & maximum pressure sanctions targeting Iranian citizens even as Iran was in full compliance. Iran will not accept loopholes & ambiguities. The U.S. is imposing costs on the EU.”

The tweet was referring to EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell’s remarks on Monday who said, “So I have to say that the last answer I got, if the purpose is to close the deal quickly, it is not going to help it. (from Iran) So what I'm doing, to keep consulting with all other JCPOA participants, and in particular the U.S., because it is a request that has to be fulfilled by the U.S. in particular...on how to proceed. But I'm sorry to say that I am less confident today than...before...about the prospect of closing the deal right now.”

After Borrell’s comments, Russia’s top negotiator in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, tweeted, “It’s clear that #Iran will not accept loopholes and ambiguities. I am not sure that #EU forgot who is responsible for the current situation. Despite complicated character of int. relations participants in the #ViennaTalks demonstrated so far the ability to be pragmatic.”

Ambiguities are an obstacle to any reflection on language. Diplomatic ambiguities can jeopardize political agreements. In conference diplomacy, the successful diplomat engaged in the negotiation of texts will often strive to persuade his interlocutors to reach agreement on a form of words which combines precision with ambiguity. The two can be brought together in the same paragraph or longer text, more rarely in the same sentence. The precision will as a rule, serve the purposes of his own side in stipulating claims or limits to commitments; the sought-for ambiguity will serve to allay anxieties on either side or to secure a margin for subsequent interpretation.

In a comprehensive paper on Diplomacy.edu website, Drazen Pehar, a Bosnian scientist clarified the use of ambiguous statements and words and their benefits for parties to a “peace agreement”. 

“Well, mediators, or those drafting such texts, reason approximately in the following way. If two parties have strong and contradictory interests, and if it seems that neither side is ready to concede a part of its maximum demand, and/or if the negotiations are running short of time and the parties cannot discuss such concessions in more detail, then the issue of conflicting interests can be resolved by, so to speak, simulating a compromise in a very rudimentary form. The mediators may come up with a formula which is open to at least two different interpretations; which can carry at least two meanings, A and B, one to gratify the interests of party A and another to gratify the interests of party B. Meaning A will thus stand in harmony with the interests, or preferences, of party A, while meaning B will stand in harmony with the interests, or preferences, of party B. Thus, the mediators maintain the integrity and comprehensiveness of the draft, and, at the same time, make a small step towards elaborating, at a later stage, a compromise between the maximum demands by erstwhile conflicting, now negotiating, parties. In other words, ambiguities make sure that, on the one hand, the parties retain their own individual perceptions as to ‘how things should proceed’ and that, on the other, one common language is adopted, which both parties may later equally use,” he wrote. 

The United States used this technique in 2015 when it signed the JCPOA. Americans wrote a completely accurate, objective, and uninterpretable text about Iran's JCPOA commitments which was in their interest. However, their own commitments were written in a way that could be interpreted in various ways. 

In writing the text of the JCPOA, Iran was hit by ambiguity in words. Hence, Iran does not want to be bitten by the same snake again in these rounds of talks to revive the JCPOA.

Let us all be clear. Iran’s response is designed in a way that would speed up the conclusion of the talks. There is no excessive demand by Tehran or anything that goes beyond the original text of the JCPOA. What has slowed down the United States sending its response to the EU is that they are unwilling to draft an unambiguous text that could benefit Iran. If there is one phrase that could sum up the current predicament of the JCPOA, it’s this: A true war of words.