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No Breakthrough in Iran-Russia Nuclear Compromise Talks
Iran and Russia today concluded two-day negotiations on a compromise nuclear proposal without any breakthrough, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Feb. 17). Lavrov said yesterday that Iran should again halt uranium enrichment. “It’s important for Iran to resume a moratorium on uranium enrichment on its territory and continue contacts between all interested parties to achieve mutually acceptable agreements,” he said. However, the head of the Iranian delegation in Moscow, Supreme National Security Council Deputy Secretary Ali Hosseinitash, before the meeting rejected any connection between the Russian proposal to enrich uranium on Iran’s behalf and demands for Iran to restore an enrichment moratorium. Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency chief Sergei Kiriyenko is scheduled to travel to Iran on Thursday for further talks, according to AP (Henry Meyer, Associated Press/ABCNews.com, Feb. 21). Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said any lasting agreement with Russia would have to include fuel supplies while allowing Tehran to continue its current nuclear activities, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday. “It means the research department will continue its activities and the Russian proposal is for major fuel production, nuclear fuel production,” Mottaki said (Agence France-Presse/IranMania.com, Feb. 20). Meanwhile, top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani last week proposed resuming snap International Atomic Energy Agency inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities and resuming negotiations with the European Union, AP reported Saturday. Larijani made the offers in a French radio interview on Thursday. The Iranian Embassy in Paris later released a statement saying that U.S. and British scientists have proposed allowing Tehran the use of centrifuges for limited uranium enrichment. The Iranian Embassy said such a centrifuge deal could prompt Iran to ratify its Additional Protocol to its International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards agreement, which allows for short-notice international inspections. “If such guarantees were accepted, Iran would accept to submit the Additional Protocol to parliament for ratification,” the embassy announced (John Leicester, Associated Press/Washington Post, Feb. 18). EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Iran in talks yesterday had not presented any new nuclear proposals to Brussels, AFP reported. “They have repeated their arguments but the substantive position has not changed,” he said after meeting with Mottaki. Solana said he hoped Tehran would change its position before the International Atomic Energy Agency releases its report on Iran on March 6. He also seemed to reject the possibility of continued nuclear research in Iran, according to AFP. “I don’t think these type of proposals continue to construct confidence, but probably they go in the opposite direction,” he said (Agence France-Presse, Feb. 20). Mottaki said today that Iran would only hold nuclear talks with France, Germany and the United Kingdom on a bilateral basis, AFP reported. “Our contacts with the European Union will no longer be held with the EU-3, but in a unilateral manner with the different countries of the European Union,” he said. “At the moment we are at the beginning of the road for enrichment in the laboratory. Any new idea for negotiations needs to go from this point,” he added (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Feb. 21). Mottaki also welcomed a proposal by IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei that Iran be allowed to conduct small-scale uranium enrichment. “We regard this proposal as an indication of accepting enrichment in Iran and a step forward,” the IRNA news agency quoted Mottaki was as saying (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Feb. 18). Top Iranian clerics have for the first time endorsed nuclear weapons, the London Sunday Telegraph reported. Mohsen Gharavian, a lecturer based in a religious school in Qom, declared “for the first time that the use of nuclear weapons may not constitute a problem, according to Shariah,” the reformist Iranian Internet publication Rooz reported. “When the entire world is armed with nuclear weapons, it is permissible to use these weapons as a countermeasure. According to Shariah [Islamic law], too, only the goal is important,” Gharavian is quoted as saying (Colin Freeman, Sunday Telegraph/Washington Times, Feb. 19). Iran offered to open talks with the United States on weapons of mass destruction in May 2003, Newsday reported Sunday. Sadegh Kharazi, Iran’s ambassador to France, sent a fax to the State Department proposing negotiations that would address topics including Tehran’s nuclear program and support for terrorism, said Flynt Leverett, a former senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council who said he read the document. “The Iranians acknowledged that WMD and support for terror were serious causes of concern for us, and they were willing to negotiate,” Leverett said. “The message had been approved by all the highest levels of authority. They wanted us to deal with sanctions, security guarantees, normalization of relations, and support for integration of Iran into the World Trade Organization.” In the wake of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Iran’s envoys to Sweden and the United Kingdom also indicated Tehran’s willingness to negotiate with Washington, according to a former Western diplomat. Former senior CIA official Paul Pillar also said Iran was pushing for engagement with the United States at the time. “There were several other informed intellectuals who visited Iran at the time,” he said. “They were being used to receive and deliver similar sorts of messages. There was an interest in Tehran in engaging and talking.” However, the Bush administration rejected the Iranian overtures and told Swiss Ambassador Tim Guldimann that he had exceeded his authority by acting as an intermediary in the message-passing, Leverett said. Some experts said the United States might have missed an opportunity to end Iran’s nuclear program, according to Newsday. “No one at a senior level was willing to push Iran on diplomacy,” Leverett said. “Was there at least a chance that we could have gotten something going? Yes, there was a chance.” A State Department spokesman, however, disputed the notion that there was ever an opportunity for direct negotiations with Iran. “The presumption that the regime in Iran is going to change its stripes is specious,” the spokesman told Newsday. “Was there a credible approach from the Iranian government with an offer that made any kind of sense? Never at any time.” (Gregory Beals, Newsday, Feb. 19). U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton told Time magazine that Iran should follow the example of Libya, which gave up its WMD programs in 2004, AFP reported Sunday. Asked if the nuclear standoff could still be resolved through diplomacy, Bolton said: “Sure. I never would have guessed that Libya was prepared to make the calculation that they were safer giving up the pursuit of nuclear weapons than continuing to go after them, and yet they did.” “And that led to substantial progress in the relationship between Libya and the United States. If Libya can do it, Iran can do it too,” he said. “That’s why I say the decision ultimately is largely in their hands,” he added (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Feb. 19). China today urged Iran to halt its uranium enrichment activities, AP reported. “We hope Iran can restore its moratorium on all activities related to uranium enrichment and create the conditions for the solution of the nuclear issue through negotiations,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao (Associated Press/Pravda, Feb. 21). An Iranian official, meanwhile, said Tehran plans to construct 20 nuclear power plants, United Press International reported Saturday. The Fars News Agency quoted Mohammad Hosein Farhangi, a member of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, as saying that Iran’s next budget orders construction of the 20 plants (United Press International, Feb. 19).
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