PARIS -
Although Iran and three European powers have reached a
preliminary agreement over Tehran's controversial
nuclear program, the ball is in Tehran's hands, where
the final decision will be taken.
"An intense
debate is raging among Iranian ruling clerics over the
issue of nuclear programs. On the one hand you have the
so-called ultras, most of them sitting in the most
powerful but shadowy League of Islamic Associations,
that has recently changed its status to the Party of
Islamic Associations, pushing hard for emulating North
Korea by ending talks with the Europeans, getting out of
both the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] and
the Non-Proliferation Treaty [NPT]," a source told Asia
Times Online on condition of anonymity during a short
stopover in a European capital.
"On the other,
there are the so-called pragmatists, led by
Hojjatoleslam Hasan Rohani, the secretary of Iran's
Supreme Council of National Security [SCNS] and the
regime's senior negotiator with both the IAEA and the
European trio, namely Britain, France and Germany,
warning the other side that if Iran does not show
flexibility in satisfying the demands formulated by the
IAEA and the Big Three, one might expect catastrophe,
specially now that George W Bush has been re-elected
comfortably as president of the United States," he
added.
After the weekend's talks in
Paris, the Europeans are optimistic that they can get Iran
to reach an agreement that will avoid it being referred
to the United Nations Security Council and avert the risk
of sanctions over its nuclear program. Iran has to be
persuaded to suspend its uranium-enrichment program indefinitely
as a way to ensure that it does not use the
technology to produce a nuclear weapon. Iran has insisted
that the suspension be no longer than six months and has
sought assurances that it will not be asked to
permanently revoke its right to have a nuclear-energy
program.
According to the pragmatists in Iran,
if the Europeans do not get satisfaction, they will side
with Washington - which wants the issue to go before the
UN - and in a situation where Iran has no friends, apart
perhaps from China, the face the risk of sanctions.
In one of their proposals to Iran last month,
the European trio offered a package of "stick and
carrots", including a light-water research reactor, fuel
for the reactors under construction with Russian
assistance and possible investment in Iran's future
nuclear-powered electricity plants against Iran's firm
pledge to suspend indefinitely uranium enrichment and
related activities, such as reprocessing uranium and
building centrifuges used to enrich it, proposals that
Tehran rejected, stressing that "the right to master the
sensitive nuclear fuel cycle, including enrichment, is
our legitimate right that we shall never give up".
"We will not accept any constraint. It is us who
will decide on the duration [of a suspension of
enrichment] and we will keep it in place for as long as
we want," noted Elias Naderan, a conservative lawmaker.
"We have mastered the full nuclear fuel cycle and this
project has reached the point of no return. The
Europeans must now recognize this fact as a red line."
Ironically, it appears that the ultras are after
a "catastrophe scenario", hoping that in the event of
harsh sanctions or even an attack on its nuclear
facilities by the US or Israel, the population, now
massively against the regime, would fall in line behind
the ruling mullahs and their nuclear ambitions.
"The final word must come from Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, the leader of the regime. But so far he seems
either undecided or incapable of taking sides. Although
he himself reiterates that Iran is not after nuclear
weapons, stressing that such arms are banned by Islam,
by reading his mouthpieces in conservative-controlled
newspapers like Kayhan or Jomhouri Eslami, one gets the
impression that he is for the North Korean option," the
source explained to Asia Times Online.
Last
week, Khamenei repeated that Iran, because of its
"religious jurisdictions", was not after nuclear arms,
and taking a cue from his "directives", several
lawmakers at the conservative-dominated Majlis, or
parliament, announced a plan aimed at banning the
production of nuclear weapons.
According to
Hoseyn Moussavian, Iran's chief negotiator with the Big
Three, the preliminary agreement worked out in Paris
during a marathon 22-hour session could be finalized "in
the next few days", but then it would have to be
confirmed in the capitals of the concerned parties.
"We had 22 hours of very difficult and
complicated negotiations, but we reached a preliminary
agreement at the expert level, with the Europeans
accepting eight out of 10 proposals we presented,
including the one that says the time of suspension of
enriching uranium must be decided by Iran," Moussavian
said, adding that the four countries must now ask their
governments to approve the accord.
If approved,
the deal - of which few details are known - would stop
the Vienna-based IAEA's board of directors from sending
Iran's case to the Security Council.
The US,
alongside Israel and some European nations, accuses the
Iranian ayatollahs of being in the process of building
atomic weapons by diverting nuclear technologies for
nuclear-powered reactors they have under construction
with the assistance of Russia.
"If this
[preliminary agreement] is approved by all four parties,
we will witness an important change in Iran's relations
with Europe and much of the international community in
[the] not-too-distant future," Moussavian said without
elaborating.
On October 20, Rohani and foreign
affairs ministers from Britain, France and Germany
reached an agreement in Tehran stipulating that Iran
would suspend uranium enrichment and sign the additional
protocol to the NPT, a clause that allows international
nuclear inspectors to visit all Iranian nuclear projects
and sites without restriction, but refused to stop other
related activities, such as reprocessing uranium or
building centrifuges, insisting its program was intended
purely for the production of fuel for nuclear power
generation. Uranium enrichment is permitted under the
NPT, to which Iran is a signatory and which is being
enforced by the IAEA.
However, a source told the
official Iranian news agency IRNA in Paris that the
talks remained deadlocked as the Iranian side did not
accept the European proposal for an indefinite
suspension of uranium enrichment, while the European
side was not satisfied with Tehran's guarantee that it
would never use nuclear technology for military
purposes.
"Following difficult discussions,
the two sides have achieved considerable progress towards
a preliminary agreement on a joint approach to
the questions," a French foreign-affairs spokesman told
journalists.
To give Europe a firm sign that
Iran is not trying to produce an atomic bomb, a weapon
that Israel says would be used to attack the Jewish
state, some Iranian lawmakers announced on Monday that
they were collecting support for a draft bill banning
the production of nuclear weapons.
Legislator Mahmoud Mohammadi told the US news agency The
Associated Press that the bill could be presented to the
Majlis next week, adding that the draft was prompted by
a religious verdict by Khamenei.
"Ayatollah
Khamenei's verdict is clear," Mohammadi observed. "So
why not make the production of nuclear weapons illegal
under Iranian law?"
But the idea was criticized
by radical newspapers controlled by the conservatives.
"Iran is a member of the NPT. Our leaders have
reiterated that we are not using nuclear technologies
for military purposes. But this bill runs against all
our logic since it looks like confirming the views of
our enemies making wrong accusations against Iran,"
wrote the evening daily Kayhan.
Safa
Haeri is a Paris-based Iranian journalist covering
the Middle East and Central Asia.
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