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Rice Praises Continued Iranian Nuclear Freeze
Tehran’s decision to continue its suspension of uranium enrichment activities after talks with three European Union nations was a “very positive development,” U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday (see GSN, May 26). “What the EU-3 did in holding to the Paris agreement, of holding to the insistence on a suspension, on holding to objective guarantees as the outcome, which we believe has got to be a permanent cessation of the sensitive activities associated with the nuclear fuel cycle, is a very positive development,” she said (Agence France-Presse /SpaceWar.com, May 26). Iran could still resume uranium conversion if it finds the pending European proposal unsatisfactory, AFP reported today. “We will restart (work at the) the Isfahan (uranium) conversion plant, and the fuel cycle is our (non-negotiable) red line,” top Iranian nuclear official Hassan Rohani, replying to a question on what would happen if Iran did not accept the proposal. “Since the European proposal was a new one and it is up to the regime’s officials to make a decision, we brought it to Tehran. If not accepted we will begin enrichment in Isfahan,” he said. Rohani also warned European negotiators that if “they want to drag out the negotiations, we will begin the enrichment in Isfahan” (Agence France-Presse /SpaceWar.com, May 27). Meanwhile, the State Department announced yesterday that Washington’s decision to refrain from blocking Iran’s application to the World Trade Organization was intended to support the EU negotiations. President George W. Bush “decided on March 11 that in order to support the European diplomacy, the U.S. would drop its objection to Iran’s application to the World Trade Organization and would consider on a case-by-case basis the licensing of spare parts for Iranian civil aircraft, in particular, from the European Union to Iran,” said spokesman Richard Boucher (State Department briefing, May 26). Membership to the body generally takes years and requires economic and political reforms, the New York Times reported. The Bush administration has also emphasized that it has no intention of offering any more incentives to Iran for the time being. Iran, meanwhile, is interested in obtaining access to advanced nuclear reactors through its negotiations with the EU, according to the Times. European countries, however, are not permitted to sell Iran nuclear reactors which contain U.S. technology without U.S. approval. At Tuesday’s working-level meeting in Brussels, Iranian negotiator Hossein Mousavian, asked European officials why they did not just ask “their big boss,” the United States, to directly supply 10 nuclear reactors to Tehran, two participants in the meeting said. “The United States has always been the ghost at the table,” said one European participant (Elaine Sciolino, New York Times, May 27).
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