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Iran Reportedly Offers to Halt Some Nuclear Development
Pressure by the United States and European Union has led to an offer by Iran to stop most of its nuclear fuel cycle development while retaining the right to enrich small amounts of uranium, the Financial Times reported Saturday (see GSN, March 11). Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Saturday that the U.S. incentives were insufficient, the Associated Press reported. “The restrictions on spare parts that have no military purpose should have not been imposed from the beginning, and lifting them is not an incentive,” he said, adding that “joining the [World Trade Organization] is an obvious right of any country in the world.” Iranian nuclear negotiator Sirus Naseri, however, described the U.S. offer as a “new awakening ... (that) I believe would stand to benefit the United States more than anybody else” (Nasser Karimi, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, March 12). Fellow Iranian negotiator Hossein Mousavian told the BBC yesterday that the U.S. offer “does not represent any economic advantage and does not have much value,” Agence France-Presse reported “To show their goodwill, the Americans should release our assets that are frozen in American banks, lift their economic sanctions against Iran and put an end to their hostile acts against Iran in the world and the region,” he said (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, March 13). France is satisfied with the concessions offered by Washington, French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said today, AFP reported. “These gestures made recently by the United States give us what we expected and show that the United States, like Russia and China . . . wants to give negotiations a chance,” Barnier said (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, March 14). Naseri said today that Iran may be preparing its final offer in talks with France, Germany and the United Kingdom, Reuters reported. “It might not be long before we put on the table our final proposal and give them a deadline to either accept or reject it,” Naseri said, adding that he recognized that such a strategy meant the two sides “might be moving toward an agreement or toward a confrontation” (Reuters, March 14). Negotiations between Iran and the European nations are on track, despite Tehran’s public indifference to Washington’s incentives package, a top Bush administration official said yesterday. “This is a negotiating process between the Europeans and the Iranians and it’s not surprising to hear those statements,” Stephen Hadley, White House national security adviser, told Fox News Sunday. He added that Iranian President Mohammad Khatami had expressed interested in discussing the kinds of guarantees and assurances Iran could give to show it is not seeking atomic weapons (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, March 13). Washington and Brussels are prepared to wait until after Iran’s presidential election in June for an agreement on Tehran’s nuclear program, U.S. and European officials have said, the Washington Post reported Saturday. “Any durable agreement will need support from the government beyond June,” a European official said (Robin Wright, Washington Post, March 12). Meanwhile, Israel has plans for a combined air and ground attack on targets in Iran in case a diplomatic push by the EU and the United States fails to resolve the nuclear issue, the London Sunday Times reported. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’ Cabinet gave “initial authorization” last month for an attack, and Israeli forces have practiced destroying Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment plant on a site mock-up, according to the Times. U.S. officials have been informed of the plan and have indicated they would not block an Israeli attack if diplomatic efforts fail, the Times reported (Uzi Mahnaimi, Sunday Times, March 13). “The Iranian threat is an existential threat to the state Israel. Military action is the very last resort,” Ephraim Sneh, a member of the Israeli parliament’s Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee and retired general, told Israel’s Army Radio yesterday. “We have to ensure that other steps, diplomatic steps are carried out first. Here the United States plays a leading role and I hope it will fill it” (Josef Federman, Associated Press, March 13). U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday told ABC’s This Week that Washington has not backed a military strike by Israel on Iran, insisting that the United States was committed to a negotiated settlement, AFP reported (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, March 13).
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