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New president handed a
nuclear confrontation
By Safa Haeri
PARIS - Incoming Iranian president Mahmud
Ahmadinejad, who takes office August 3, has been
given a hand-made and potentially explosive crisis
by outgoing President Mohammad Khatami.
Iran announced at the weekend that it
would end its indefinite suspension of uranium
enrichment, nuclear fuel reprocessing and related
activities as Tehran had not received compromise
proposals as promised by the European Three ( EU-3
- Germany, Britain and France) who are negotiating
with Iran.
The EU immediately branded the
move "unnecessary and damaging" and one which
could derail their talks.
Iranian analysts
interpret the move as an indication of the
pressures that the conservatives will put on
Ahmadinejad for the full resumption of nuclear
activities, at the price of stopping talks with the
EU-3 and even getting out of the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty to which Iran is a
signatory.
Iran said that it would start
activities at the Uranium Conversion Facility
(UCF) in the central city of Esfahan "before the
end of the mandate of outgoing President Mohammad
Khatami".
Iran said it had informed the
EU-3 about its decision to resume activities at
the UCF - suspended since last November under an
accord reached in Paris with the troika - during a
meeting late last week in Tehran between the
ambassadors of the Big 3 and Hussein Moussavian,
one of Iran's senior nuclear negotiators.
"Since the Big 3 has failed to honor its
Paris engagements, the Islamic republic has
decided to resume activities at Esfahan's UCF as
from this week and before the end of the mandate
of the present government," the influential Fars
news agency reported.
Quoting an "informed
source", Fars, which is close to the leadership,
added that Iran had informed the Vienna-based
United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) about its intentions and a member of the
negotiating team was already on his way to hand
the letter to the IAEA.
Indications of
Iran's position came earlier when Khatami,
probably under pressure from hardliners, raised
the question of the resumption of UCF activities
"in the very near future", explaining that this
process "had nothing to do with enriching
uranium".
Ali Larijani, a close adviser to
the president-elect and the personal
representative of the incoming leader at the
Supreme Council on National Security (SCNS), had
urged Khatami to resume all nuclear activities,
including enriching uranium - the most important
step in producing nuclear energy for both civilian
and military uses - before the end of his mandate.
Larijani is tipped to take over from Hasan
Rohani as secretary of the SCNS and head of Iran's
nuclear negotiating team once Ahmadinejad takes
over.
European diplomats say that the
reason the EU-3 has delayed presenting its package
of economic and political incentives for Tehran to
consider in return for Iran's indefinite
suspension of nuclear fuel activities is that the
EU-3 wants to deal with Ahmadinejad and his new
team.
They describe Ahmadinejad as a
"fundamentalist" fully in chemistry with Grand
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic
republic who has the last word on all major
matters, including the nuclear issue. They want
to deal with the real holders of power - instead
of with a government that is in its final hours,
and, more important for them, to see whether there
will be any change in the negotiating team, a
process that could take several weeks.
Rohani has been an important factor in
negotiations with the EU-3 and in bringing the
parties as far as they have. This in the face of
stiff United States pressure generated by a desire
by many in the Bush administration to have Iran's
case taken to the United Nations Security Council.
Washington is skeptical that Iran's nuclear
program is solely for peaceful purposes.
Iran might not be too concerned by such
a development as should the council
propose sanctions against Tehran, Russia, a
veto-wielding member, would most likely oppose
this.
Iran has one nuclear-powered
electricity plant near completion with Russian
help and technology on the Persian Gulf at
Bushehr. It originally planned the construction of
five others, but under pressure from the
conservatives-controlled majlis, or parliament,
Khatami's government said it was now looking to
build 19 others, and it invited the Europeans and
even the Americans to enter the multibillion
dollar project.
In a long report to Khatami,
Rohani indirectly implies that negotiations
with the EU-3 should be continued, even at
the price of extending the suspension of
uranium-enriching, a process that the EU-3 wants to
become permanent.
In his report, Rohani
reveals that the EU-3 has pledged to support
Iran's nuclear projects for peaceful uses; provide
nuclear power plants and "sustained, long-term"
fuel guaranteed by the IAEA, and also the "gradual
lifting of obstacles" preventing Iran from getting
advanced technologies.
The package also
includes "all necessary measures concerning the
respect of Iranian territorial integrity,
independence and sovereignty of Iran and
non-aggression against it"; strengthening
cooperation in the political and security fields
in both the international and regional arenas,
including the fight against terrorism and drug
smuggling, as well as fostering Iran-EU relations,
which includes signing a trade and cooperation
agreement and recognizing Iran as a principal
source of energy for Europe.
However, the
hardline newspaper Keyhan, a mouthpiece for
Khamenei, has dismissed the EU-3's efforts: "The
European negotiators are after one goal, which is
depriving the Islamic republic from its most
natural right, that of nuclear technologies."
This contrasting view to Rohani's shows
the gulf within Iran that Ahmadinejad will have to
bridge.
Safa Haeri is a
Paris-based Iranian journalist covering the Middle
East and Central Asia.
(Copyright 2005
Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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