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Chirac Urges Softening of EU Stance on Iran
French President Jacques Chirac hopes to persuade the European Union to allow Iran to keep a small-scale uranium enrichment capability as part of a settlement to the standoff over Tehran’s nuclear program, Reuters reported yesterday (see GSN, April 13). France, Germany and the United Kingdom agreed last month to consider an Iranian proposal to maintain a limited enrichment program monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. This change in the EU position, which was previously in line with U.S. demands that Iran permanently cease all enrichment, followed pressure from France, according to several diplomats. “Jacques Chirac ... is the one who’s taking the Iranian proposal under consideration,” said a diplomat from one of the three European powers. “Chirac seems to have taken things a bit further forward than everyone else, but his comments do not really represent the official French position on objective guarantees,” said another. Diplomats said that Chirac had pressed French negotiators to look at Iran’s proposal that it be allowed to maintain 3,000 uranium-enrichment centrifuges, Reuters reported. That number of centrifuges could produce enough weaponizable uranium for one weapon annually. French Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei denied reports that Chirac had pressed the agency into softening its stance. “On the Iran dossier, there’s one, and only one French position,” Mattei said. Chirac yesterday described the talks with Iran as “concerning the peaceful use of its nuclear program.” “An agreement would give a new dimension to Iran’s relations with the states in the region and the members of the international community,” he said. The EU-Iran nuclear working group is expected to meet April 19-20 in Geneva, with a senior level group scheduled to convene in London on April 29, diplomats said. Both groups are expected to discuss the limited enrichment capability proposal, according to Reuters (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters, April 13). A U.S. State Department spokesman said yesterday in response to Chirac’s reported position that the United States remains committed to enforcing a permanent ban on Iran’s enrichment of uranium. “The position of the United States and, I think, many other members of the international community has been and continues to be that the suspension of enrichment activity needs to be made permanent, it needs to be turned into a permanent cessation,” said spokesman Richard Boucher. He added that U.S. intelligence continues to indicate that Iran would not be capable of building a nuclear weapon for several years. “I think our intelligence community has used in the past an estimate that said that Iran was not likely to acquire a nuclear weapon before the beginning of the next decade. That remains the case,” he said (State Department daily briefing, April 13). Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday that Israel was not “planning any military attack on Iran” and supported “an international effort” to resolve the situation, the New York Times reported. “I think that here it should be a coalition of democracies who believe in the danger, led by the United States, in order to put pressure upon Iran,” Sharon told CNN. Asked if his government had ruled out unilateral military strikes against Iranian nuclear sites, he said, “We don’t think that’s what we have to do” (Steven Weisman, New York Times, April 14).
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