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Iran Wants EU Incentives in Nuclear Talks
A top Iranian official said Tehran wants significant economic incentives from the European Union as the two sides prepare to meet for emergency talks on Iran’s nuclear program, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, May 17). “The maximum announced was U.S. readiness to give spare parts for used airplanes, which is just a joke as the result of three months of negotiations,” Iranian negotiator Hossein Mousavian said yesterday. Iran will not abandon plans to enrich uranium, regardless of the incentives offered, Mousavian added. “We would be prepared to continue suspension of enrichment for two to three more months, or some months, to test whether there would be any outcome of negotiations,” he said. Some experts have suggested that allowing Iran to have a declared nuclear program subject to international monitoring is preferable to a secret effort. “It’s much better to have 500 centrifuges under the eye of everybody than 50 clandestine ones out in the desert somewhere,” said one expert. If Iran had 500 centrifuges, it would take approximately 10 years to produce enough material for one nuclear weapon, said a senior European diplomat. U.S. officials, however, have contended that Tehran would gain weapons capability by having even a small number of centrifuges (Neil MacFarquhar, New York Times, May 19). French, British and German foreign ministers, along with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, are scheduled to meet with Iranian officials Tuesday in Brussels, European diplomats confirmed yesterday (Michael Thurston, Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, May 19). The only issues up for discussion at the talks will be the timing and conditions of enrichment resumption, top Iranian negotiator Hassan Rohani said yesterday. “There are no other issues negotiable,” Rohani said. “If we feel that the Europeans are determined to exercise the agreements, and also we feel that they do not want to waste time, we would have no problem to delay resumption of activities in the Isfahan facility for some weeks,” he added. In response, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher warned that Iran should “try to reassure the international community that has been more and more concerned about its activities.” The International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors is scheduled to discuss a report on the two-year investigation of Iran on June 13, Reuters reported. If Iran maintains its nuclear freeze until at least the June 17 presidential elections, it can expect a generally positive report from the agency, diplomats said. Any referral to the U.N. Security Council would then likely be delayed until at least the September board meeting, according to Reuters (Holmes/Moody, Reuters, May 19). Iran’s aims to create dissension between the European nations or split them from the United States on the nuclear issue, a senior U.S. official said yesterday. “I think what’s really going on is a period of testing, with the Iranians testing whether they can kind of break the EU-3 apart or break the EU-3 from us,” the official said. “It’s complicated, it’s hard, it’s going to take some time, I think the EU-3 have a pretty good approach,” he said (Reuters, May 18)
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