European States Attempt to Resuscitate the JCPOA, Again.



By Michele

Back to the negotiation table! Last Friday officials from the UK, Germany, and France – known as the E3 group before Brexit – met with Iranian counterparts for tentative talks regarding Iran’s nuclear program. The meeting comes in the backdrop of a recent IAEA resolution condemning Iran’s enrichment activities and obstruction of the body’s supervision.If the E3 group supported this motion, it also acknowledges the fact that the stakes are much higher than the impasse over Iran’s nuclear program For the record, the parties have reportedly discussed international developments in Ukraine, Lebanon, and Gaza, with Teheran and the West being at odds in each theatre. That said, the exact content and outcome of the talks remain unknown. What is known is that Iran’s negotiator said that Europe “should abandon its self-centred and irresponsible behaviour” and later that same day, Tehran stated that it would install 6000 new centrifuges for uranium enrichment.The meeting surely didn’t go too well.



Not a smooth journey… However, the two sides share a major concern and a common underlying goal: the upcoming Trump administration’s Middle East policyand relaunching a European-led nuclear deal before Trump’s inauguration. On the one hand, Iran wants to ease the weight of sanctions on its economy since Washington’s 2016-2020 ‘maximum pressure’ policy will likely make a comeback. On the other, European states are looking to decouple their regional policy from Washington and the unpredictable, if not escalatory, direction it will likely take once Trump 2.0 re-enters the White House.



The bottom line. It is important to note that backchannel negotiations to revive the JCPOA have been ongoing since the start of the Biden administration and never stopped. However, the talks have been complicated by Iran’s active support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, crackdown on protesters, and its contribution to regional escalation in the Middle East. Nonetheless, there is an underlying problem: Iran’s nuclear program has advanced significantly, raising doubts over the feasibility of a nuclear deal based on the same old concept of less sanctions and more controls.





Opposition Forces Take Aleppo in Surprise Offensive
By Hannah

A surprise offensive saw the opposition group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) seize control of Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city, and of the territory across North-Western Syria over a mere three-day campaign. Entering the city with relative ease, and continuing southwards towards Hama, this offensive poses the greatest challenge to the rule of President Bashar al-Assad in years. Up until this weekend, the conflict had been frozen in stalemate through a ceasefire in North-Western Idlib established in 2020.



Many are left asking: how did opposition forces seize this territory so rapidly and with such little resistance? Syria’s two key allies, Russia and Iran, are not as strong as they used to be, with Russia preoccupied with the war in Ukraine and the Iranian-backed forces in Syria weakened by Israeli attacks. However, the allies of Assad quickly came to his defence, with Russian airstrikes already resulting in the death of nearly 500 people.



Who exactly is HTS? Originally tied to al-Qaeda, HTS broke from the group in 2016 to become the strongest opposition movement in the North-West of Syria. Over the years, it has sought to prove its governing capabilities in Idlib setting up institutions and safeguarding the flow of international humanitarian aid . Yet the record of the HTS is not without serious abuses. Reports point to serious human rights violations,including the detention of civilians and humanitarian workers, abduction and execution.



Mixed feelings in Aleppo. While some people are cautiously optimistic, pleased to see the end of Assad’s control of the region, others are fearful of the reprisals of Assad, who is not new to using chemical weapons and torturing civilians to death to save his regime. The logic is simple: “Assad or we burn the country.”





Saudi Arabia is Accused of Hampering Climate Progress

By Giulia

COP29 is over, but… This year’s climate conference was supposed to address payments by developed nations to their developing counterparts – a bandage to patch-up years of injury caused by unbalanced growth. Instead, the conference’s agreements were deemed too little, too late and riddled with loopholes by Global South countries. Leaders of developing countries argue this is all a product of power plays, coercion and behind-the-scenes lobbying by the delegations of developed nations. But this is not all. Even past gains achieved in the Paris Agreement seem to be under threat.



Obstructing progress: The star of the show (or the controversy) was Saudi Arabia’s chief climate negotiator, Basel Alsubaity, who was accused of modifying a negotiating draft text supporting the green transition. The controversy erupted when the Azerbaijani presidency circulated a document on the so-called Just Transition Work Program (JTWP) showing tracked changes by Alsubaity (yes you read that right). Yet, this incident is anything but surprising. Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s leading petrostates, and green transition risks jeopardising the currency it knows best: black gold. But wait, who granted Saudi Arabia editing access?



The broader picture. The Saudi delegation’s actions have intensified fears that the progress made in previous summits could be undermined, and, though the outcome of COP29 sees little actionable progress, many voices continue to call-out blatant exploitations of power and warn against allowing wealthy fossil fuel emitters to exploit the process at the expense of vulnerable nations. And so, COP29 wraps up - not with a cheer but a weary sigh - and our hopes turn to COP30.