Following the presidential elections in Iran, expectations for a new beginning in the West-Iran relations yielded exciting news although not even a hundred days passed since Hassan Rouhani was elected president. The parties reached a settlement on the nuclear energy dispute concerning Iran, which had become a very delicate issue between Iran and the West for a long time, and this signaled possible rapprochements.
After this agreement, a spate of analyses have been made about the Iran-the West relations, although bilateral relations have been problematic between Iran and the West in general since the 1979 revolution, and hostile between Iran and the US in particular. The analyses focus on the beginning of a new term in bilateral relations and on the new dimension of the relations, which may lead to new alliances and the birth of new discords in the region.
Some of these analyses were well-balanced and prudent, yet others were exaggerated expectations, either in the negative or positive sense. The accumulating issues between the two countries throughout the history, cracked voices in their national policies and the reflexes of global and regional players in case of a rapprochement are some of the many determining factors in the US-Iranian relations. Therefore, in order to read the US-Iranian relations accurately and make a sound analysis, the data in hand should be processed accurately. This is the purpose of this study.
In line with this objective, the study will seek answers to the following questions:
- How has the course of history in the US-Iranian relations been?
- Were there any unofficial, indirectly official and directly official talks previously?
- What are the main issues and perspectives of the parties in regard to these issues?
- How real is the said rapprochement, and is it possible to transform this into cooperation?
- What are the needs of the parties so that they have an urge for a rapprochement?
- What are the possible implications of a possible rapprochement with regard to the parties, the region and Turkey?
