This process continued despite the election of US President Joe Biden, as “negotiations to revive the Iran nuclear agreement and return the United States to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action did not reach a clear conclusion” .
However, some Iranian experts are cynical in this regard, asserting that current agreements between Iran and Russia are “memoranda,” not “contracts,” and therefore, Russian companies will not be legally obligated to fully implement their commitments . For this reason, if the revival of the JCPOA fails completely and Iran’s nuclear program is once again under UN Security Council sanctions, it is possible that Russian companies will leave Iran again.
Yet, in response to these criticisms, Khojasteh-Mehr argued that “according to the background of the $40 billion agreement with the Russians and their operations in the fields of Iran, Naturally, there should be no doubt about the determination of the parties to convert the memorandum into a contract.
In general, under the current conditions of sanctions, which have stopped foreign investment in Iran’s oil and gas industries, Tehran hopes it can capitalize on the postwar conditions in Russia following the end of the Ukraine conflict and the extensive Western sanctions against Moscow to attract additional investments from the Kremlin.