Incentives and Trust-building Over Sanction: Turkey and Brazil's Mediation of the Tehran Agreement Amid the Iranian Nuclear Crisis

The effectiveness of coercive versus incentive-based sanctions in securing compliance withnon-proliferation commitments remains contested. Contributing to this debate, this studyanalyzes Turkey and Brazil’s mediation in the 2010 Iranian nuclear negotiations, highlightingtheir non-coercive diplomatic approach as a potential alternative to the negative sanctionsbasedstrategy pursued by the P5+1 (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the UnitedStates, and Germany) to prevent nuclear proliferation. By combining incentives, trust-building,and technical innovation, their initiative — culminating in the Tehran Agreement—created anon-coercive, Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)-consistent pathway to peaceful nuclearcooperation. The study applies a process-tracing approach, combining primary and secondarysources to reconstruct the causal pathways. A semi-structured interview with former TurkishForeign and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, who acted as mediator, offers firsthand insightsthat clarify remaining ambiguities in the causal chain. The findings contribute to sanctiontheory by showing that incentive-based, trust-building measures — when embedded infacilitative mediation efforts and reinforced by technical innovation — can reduce resistanceand promote compliance in complex diplomatic contexts. Amid stalled U.S.–Iran nuclear talksand rising Israel–Iran military tensions, these insights highlight the urgent need for diplomaticsolutions over military approaches.