Iran Claims Progress in Latest Round of Talks on Nuclear Program

An Iranian official yesterday claimed that significant progress was made in talks this week with three European Union nations on resolving the standoff over Tehran’s nuclear program, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Dec. 22).

“The impasse over the nuclear file has been broken” and "from now on we sense a clear perspective for arriving at a compromise,” Hossein Entezami, spokesman for Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said of Iran’s negotiations with France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

“The very fact that the dangerous process, which began with the resolution of Sept. 24, has stopped constitutes a diplomatic victory,” he said, referring to the passage of an International Atomic Energy Agency resolution that opened the door to referring Iran to the U.N. Security Council (Agence France-Presse/Hindustan Times, Dec. 22).

Diplomats and analysts, however, said that Iran’s insistence on producing nuclear fuel and the European Union’s suspicion that this fuel would be used for weapons undermines opportunities for compromise at the next round of talks in January.

“I don’t know that it (resuming talks) means much more than that the date of confrontation is postponed as long as Iran is not yet resuming its enrichment work,” Mark Fitzpatrick, a nonproliferation analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told Agence France-Presse.

“The Europeans can be patient and I’m sure that they appreciated that the confrontation was postponed beyond the Christmas season. But it will likely come in the not-too-distant future,” he added.

Recent comments by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against Israel have hurt talks, according to French political analyst Francois Heisbourg.

“I think that the Iranian delegation (to the talks) has to be careful not to break off with the Europeans because the somewhat crazy declarations of Ahmadinejad have made the situation fragile,” he said.

European officials have warned Iran against making any moves on uranium enrichment before the next set of talks. An Iranian diplomat said, though, that Tehran does not consider manufacturing or research connected to centrifuges to be “a subject of the discussion.”

“The main issue is the feeding of the gas into the centrifuges in Natanz,” said the diplomat, referring to the last step of uranium enrichment.

A Western diplomat said Iran is using the talks to stall while moving ahead with its nuclear program.

“The Iranians pretend they're talking and just get a little more,” the diplomat said (Agence France-Presse/IranMania.com, Dec. 22).

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