So who’s normal?

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on June 2 that Washington is prepared to engage in nuclear deal talks with Iran without pre-conditions but needs to see the country behaving like “a normal nation”.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani responded: “The other side that left the negotiating table and breached a treaty should return to normal state.”

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi chipped in: “The Islamic Republic of Iran does not pay attention to word-play and expression of a hidden agenda in new forms. What matters is the change of the US general approach and actual behaviour towards the Iranian nation”

Pompeo made his remark after he was asked about comments by Rouhani on June 1 that Iran might be willing to hold talks if Washington showed it respect. He said: “We are prepared to engage in a conversation with no pre-conditions. We are ready to sit down.”

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on May 29 that Iran would not negotiate with Washington, describing talks with the US as like “poison”.

There is hope that Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will intermediate between Tehran and Washington. Abe is expected to arrive in Iran on June 12, according to Tehran’s IFP News. Last week, he hosted Donald Trump who paid an official visit to Japan.

Trump pulled the US out of the nuclear deal in May last year, opting to wage what Iran sees as an “economic war” with heavy sanctions in order to strangle the Iranian economy to the point where Tehran will be forced to grant concessions on its nuclear programme, ballistic missile programme and support for various militia across Middle East conflict zones.

Iran, the UK, France, Germany, China and Russia are still signed up to the 2015 nuclear deal. They say Tehran remains in compliance with its provisions drawn up to prevent the Iranians taking a path towards the development of a nuclear weapon. In return for that compliance, Iran is supposed to be protected from heavy sanctions, but the US has taken a unilateral path.

On May 31, the UN atomic watchdog issued a quarterly report stating that Iran has stayed within the main restrictions of the nuclear deal.

The report comes at a time that Tehran is threatening to ease back on compliance with its rules in future in response to tightening US sanctions from which, it says, the other nuclear deal signatories are not doing enough to protect its economy.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report flagged up questions about the number of advanced centrifuges Iran is allowed. That is loosely defined in the deal. The IAEA said Iran had installed 33 advanced IR-6 centrifuges for enriching uranium, although only 10 had been tested with uranium feedstock so far. The deal allows Iran to test up to 30, but only after 8 1/2 years have passed. The limit before then is a “grey area”, diplomats say.

Importantly, the inspectors found that Iran’s stock of enriched uranium was well below the limit set by the deal, as of May 20.