Iran's closing nuclear
argument By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
On Friday, November 18, the New York Times
published a full page statement of nuclear
intentions by the Islamic Republic of Iran, which
will likely serve as a key point of reference in
the on-going debates on Iran's nuclear program.
Titled "Unnecessary crisis - setting the
record straight about Iran's nuclear program", the
narrative (see appendix) was subsequently
described by CNN as a "detailed, point-by-point"
discussion of the nuclear negotiation process
during the past couple of years. It debunked the
myths about oil-rich Iran's lack of need of
alternative sources of energy, defended Iran's
negotiation postures and reiterated Iran's
willingness to continue negotiations.
In
light of the gravity of the issue and the coming
showdown at the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) meeting on November
24,
where the US-European Union coalition will be
pushing for Security Council action, it is
important to reproduce the Iranian nuclear
statement to provide a modicum of balance in the
global media's coverage of the subject, dominated
as it is by a negative image of Iran as
irrational, dogmatic and incapable of rational
discourse. The US position is opposed by the
dissenting voices of Non-Aligned Movement (NAM)
countries, which prefer an IAEA-based resolution
of the contentious issue.
The potency of
Iran's nuclear statement lies precisely in its
effective debunking of its negative image, by
presenting a detailed and comprehensive argument,
backed by facts, invoking an image of Iran that
the West, particularly the US, is often inclined
to ignore. This alone, perhaps, may signal a major
difference between Iran and pre-invasion Iraq,
that is, Iran's ability, and diplomatic
sophistication, to launch an effective
communicative counterpunch vis-a-vis the avalanche
of Iran-bashing discourse, sometimes planted by
the powers that be, seeking to manufacture a
global consensus on Iran's nuclear threat.
Interestingly, the latter includes
last-minute - with respect to the upcoming IAEA
meeting - "revelations" regarding an alleged
Iranian laptop full of sensitive information about
Iran's designs for nuclear warheads. Soon after
the publication of a front-page article in the
Sunday New York Times, a review by certain nuclear
experts found that there had been deliberate
mistranslation of key words in the documents found
in the "manna from heaven" laptop that was "handed
over by someone in Iran who got it from someone
else who is now dead", to paraphrase the New York
Times.
This is, of course, the same paper
whose editors stoutly defended their erstwhile
journalist who is accused of deliberately
misinforming the public about Iraq's weapons of
mass destruction.
The IAEA meeting will
likely defer Security Council action, perhaps for
another few months, partly due to the positive
nature of the latest report by IAEA chief Mohammad
ElBaradei, which cites significant and
"indispensable" progress in Iran-IAEA cooperation,
the resolution of most if not all outstanding
questions, and the absence of even a European
consensus, notwithstanding the latest EU
declaration calling on Iran to "fulfill its
obligations" to the nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT), when, in fact, it is the Europeans
who are skirting their obligations to respect
Iran's NPT rights.
ElBaradei's report,
dated November 18, while maintaining that Iran's
"full transparency is indispensable and overdue",
nonetheless praises Iran for allowing additional
access to IAEA inspectors, particularly at the
Parchin military base, and for permitting
interviews with certain officials not previously
interviewed. The report states that "Iran has been
more forthcoming" with providing additional
information; that the agency "did not observe any
unusual activities in the buildings visited"; and
that Iran "has continued to act as if the
Additional Protocol [to the NPT] were in effect".
Further, the report clearly states that an
environmental sampling collected at a location
where centrifuge components are stored "did not
indicate any traces of nuclear material". This is
particularly significant, since it goes to the
heart of the controversy over whether or not Iran
has breached its obligations by failing to report
the assembly of centrifuge components, given the
IAEA-Iran agreement that calls on Iran to disclose
information on the production of nuclear material
180 days prior to commencing such activities.
But the poker game will go on, and in the
coming days and weeks will perhaps become even
more heated. But regardless of whether or not the
issue gets taken up by the Security Council, the
force and potency of Iran's communicative ability,
reflected in its statement in the New York Times,
will be hard, if not impossible, to ignore.
Softening positions Ahead of the IAEA
meeting, Indian analysts are seeing indications of
a softening in the stands of a number of
countries, writes Praful Bidwai of Inter Press
Service (IPS).
India, which signed a deal
with the US in July for the transfer of civilian
nuclear technology, voted along with the US and
the EU-3 (Britain, France and Germany) against
Iran in September at a meeting of the IAEA's board
of governors, preparing the ground for Tehran's
possible referral to the Security Council.
But India has just announced that it would
keep the Iran issue within the "IAEA's
jurisdiction" and not send it to the UN. The
decision was taken under the weight of domestic
public opinion.
The US, meanwhile, has
endorsed a compromise proposal made by Russia,
under which Iran would be allowed to convert
uranium oxide (yellowcake) to uranium hexafluoride
gas, but not to enrich it. Instead, Russia would
enrich the uranium and send it back to Iran to be
used as fuel in nuclear power plants. Indications
of a change in Washington's stand have come from
senior US officials, including Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice and National Security Advisor
Stephen Hadley.
Last week, President
George W Bush met Russian President Vladimir Putin
in South Korea and soon after the meeting, Hadley
said: "We hope that over time, Iran will see the
virtue of this approach and it may provide a way
out."
The EU-3 have also backed the
Russian-brokered compromise. Iran first rejected
the proposal, but subsequently said it would
consider it.
"Evidently, the US and the
EU-3 have decided that their hardline stance
towards Iran isn't working," says A K Pasha,
professor at the Center of West Asian Studies at
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. "The US is
in deep trouble in Iraq, where its policies have
created a deep Shi'ite-Sunni rift. It knows Iran
wields great influence among the Iraqis and can
create further trouble for Washington. So it's
willing to revise its earlier tough policy and
give a negotiated compromise a chance."
Russia and China have also made known
their opposition to Iran's referral to the
Security Council. In September, they both
abstained from voting against Iran, along with a
majority of states of the NAM, a glaringly notable
exception being India.
Their hands, as
well as those of the NAM, were strengthened by
ElBaradei's latest report.
Differing
viewpoints The main players in the Iran
saga all spelt out their positions at a recent
meeting in Helsinki organized by the Finnish
Institute of International Affairs, writes Milla
Sundstrom of IPS.
The meeting, ambitiously
named "Solving the Iranian Nuclear Issue",
confronted the deadlock over whether or not Iran
is developing its nuclear power program to give it
weapons capacity.
Much of the dispute
centers on the NPT of 1970, which Iran says gives
signatories the right to develop nuclear energy
for peaceful purposes. But Iran is under pressure
to open up this program for inspection. The EU-3
have since 2003 tried to persuade Iran to be more
transparent for IAEA scrutiny.
Peter
Jenkins, British representative at the IAEA, said
Article IV of the NPT, which guarantees the right
to develop nuclear energy, "cannot and should not
be read in isolation". Article IV was never
intended to be "at the expense of the
non-proliferation objective", he said.
"From this it follows, in our view, that
the Article IV rights of a state which, through
its own action, bring into question its commitment
to the non-proliferation objective, are
compromised until such time as confidence in its
commitment to non-proliferation is
re-established," Jenkins said.
Iran
insists that it wants fissile material production
capability in order to become self-sufficient in
nuclear energy production. Last week it resumed
preparation for uranium enrichment at its nuclear
plant at Isfahan, in the face of a directive from
the IAEA on September 24 to halt all enrichment
activities.
Dr Mostafa Zahrani, director
of the Institute for Political and International
Studies in Tehran, pointed to deep differences in
perceptions between Iran and the West. The very
idea of the "international community" is
"ethnocentrically Western" in Iranian eyes, and
"nobody buys it in the Islamic world", he said.
Zahrani pointed out that Iran had signed
the NPT, but Israel, the undeclared nuclear power
in the Middle East, had not. Why was it now so
important that Iran adhered to the NPT while
nobody criticized Israel, Zahrani asked.
"In Egypt and in the region in general we
are encouraged to acquire nuclear weapons," he
said. Iran sees the US and Israel as the main
threats to its security. But he pointed out the
limited potential of an Iranian atomic bomb: it
would never be capable of a second strike.
The reason Iran had not opened up to the
IAEA was that it was isolated and needed to
survive, Zahrani said. He warned the international
community against trying to push Iran too far by
threatening use of force. He said there are
"powers" within Iran that would like to see an
increase in tension.
But what is the way
out of the stalemate?
"You have to know
the Iranian people," Zahrani said. He pointed out
that President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, who has upset
the West on several occasions since coming to
power in June, was elected democratically. The
West was on a collision course with the Iranian
people and not just its president, Zahrani said.
"What the people want is to develop and
have technology, and not rely on the international
community, which has isolated and sanctioned Iran
earlier," he said.
Dr George Perkovich
from the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace said ambiguities in the NPT
were partly to blame. The treaty "never defined
what a nuclear weapon was", he said. The IAEA was
tasked to verify that technology was used for
peaceful purposes only, but it had no access to
military sites, he said.
Perkovich said
the IAEA board meeting this week will be marked by
"a sense that one can't pretend any more that this
should not be reported to the Security Council".
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the
author of After Khomeini: New Directions in
Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and
co-authored "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism",
The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume X11,
issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd.
All rights reserved. Please contact us for
information on sales, syndication and republishing.)
Appendix: Iran's nuclear
statement
(Note: This
report is posted verbatim.)
An Unnecessary Crisis: Setting
the Record Straight about Iran's Nuclear
Program
In a region already
suffering from upheaval and uncertainty, a crisis
is being manufactured in which there will be no
winners. Worse yet, the hysteria about the dangers
of an alleged Iran nuclear weapon program rest
solely and intentionally on misperceptions and
outright lies. In the avalanche of anti-Iran media
commentaries, conspicuously absent is any
reference to important facts, coupled with a
twisted representation of the developments over
the past 25 years. Before the international
community is lead to another "crisis of choice",
it is imperative that the public knows all the
facts and is empowered to make an informed and
sober decision about an impending catastrophe.
1. Systematic Pattern of Denial of
Iran's Rights and Its Impact on Transparency
Since early 1980s, Iran's peaceful
nuclear program and its inalienable right to
nuclear technology have been the subject of the
most extensive and intensive campaign of denial,
obstruction, intervention and misinformation.
Valid and binding contracts to build nuclear
power plants were unilaterally abrogated;
Nuclear material rightfully purchased and
owned by Iran was illegally withheld;
Exercise of Iran's right as a shareholder in
several national and multinational nuclear power
corporations was obstructed;
Unjustified and coercive interventions were
routinely made in order to undermine, impede and
delay the implementation of Iran's nuclear
agreements with third parties; and
Unfounded accusations against Iran's
exclusively peaceful nuclear program were
systematically publicized.
As a result,
and merely in order to prevent further illegal and
illegitimate restrictions on its ability to
procure its needed materials and equipments, Iran
had been left with no option but to be discrete in
its perfectly legal and exclusively peaceful
activities. In doing so, Iran broke no laws nor
diverted its peaceful program to military
activities. It only refrained from disclosing the
details of its programs. In nearly all cases, it
was not even obliged to disclose these programs
under its safeguards agreement with the IAEA.
Therefore, while Iran's rights under the NPT
continued to be grossly and systematically
violated, and while major state parties to the
Treaty persisted in their non-compliance with many
of their obligations under Articles I, IV and VI
of the Treaty in general, and under paragraph 2 of
Article IV vis-?-vis Iran in particular, Iran
nevertheless continued to diligently comply with
all its obligations under the Treaty.
2. Nuclear Technology OR Nuclear
Weapons? A vicious cycle of
restrictions on Iran's nuclear program and
attempts by Iran to circumvent them through
concealment and black market acquisitions have
fueled mutual suspicions. In this
self-perpetuating atmosphere, the conclusion is
already drawn that Iran's declared peaceful
nuclear program is just a cover for developing
atomic weapons. But this conclusion is based on
two erroneous assumptions, which have been
repeated often enough to become conventional
wisdom. 2.1 - Iran Needs Nuclear
Energy 2.1.1. Nuclear Energy for an
Oil-Rich Country The first is that Iran has
vast oil and gas resources and therefore does not
need nuclear energy. Although it is true that Iran
is rich in oil and gas, these resources are finite
and, given the pace of Iran's economic
development, they will be depleted within two to
five decades. With a territory of 1,648,000 km2
and a population of about 70 million, projected to
be more than 105 million in 2050, Iran has no
choice but to seek access to more diversified and
secure sources of energy. Availability of
electricity to 46,000 villages now, compared to
4400 twenty five years ago, just as an example,
demonstrates the fast growing demand for more
energy. And the youthfulness of the Iranian
population, with around 70% under 30, doesn't
allow complacency when it comes to energy policy.
To satisfy such growing demands, Iran can't rely
exclusively on fossil energy. Since Iranian
national economy is still dependant on oil
revenue, it can't allow the ever increasing
domestic demand affect the oil revenues from the
oil export.
2.1.2. US Support for
Iranian Nuclear Program Iran's quest for
nuclear energy picked momentum following a study
in 1974 carried out by the prestigious US-based
Stanford Research Institute, which predicted
Iran's need for nuclear energy and recommended the
building of nuclear plants capable of generating
20,000 megawatts of electricity before 1994. Now,
30 years later, Iran aims at reaching that level
by 2020, which may save Iran 190 million barrels
of crude oil or $10 billion per year in today's
prices.
Therefore, Iran's nuclear program
is neither ambitious nor economically
unjustifiable. Diversification - including the
development of nuclear energy - is the only sound
and responsible energy strategy for Iran. Even the
US State Department was convinced of this in 1978
when it stated in a memo that the U.S. was
encouraged by Iran's efforts to expand its non-oil
energy base and was hopeful that the U.S.-Iran
Nuclear Energy Agreement would be concluded soon
and that U.S. companies would be able to play a
role in Iran's nuclear energy projects.
2.1.3. Nuclear Fuel
Cycle Producing fuel for its nuclear power
plants is an integral part of Iran's nuclear
energy policy. While domestic production of fuel
for this number of nuclear power plants makes
perfect economic sense, Iran's decision should not
be judged solely on economic grounds. Having been
a victim of a pattern of deprivation from peaceful
nuclear material and technology, Iran cannot
solely rely on procurement of fuel from outside
sources. Such dependence would in effect hold
Iran's multi-billion dollar investment in power
plants hostage to the political whims of suppliers
in a tightly controlled market. Furthermore, it is
self evident that the time-consuming efforts to
gain the necessary technology and develop the
capability for fuel production must proceed
simultaneously with the acquisition and
construction of nuclear power plants. Otherwise
constructed plans may become obsolete in case of
denial of fuel without a contingency capacity to
produce it domestically.
2.2. Iran Does
Not Need Nuclear Weapons for Its Security
The second false assumption is that
because Iran is surrounded by nuclear weapons in
all directions - the U.S., Russia, Pakistan and
Israel - any sound Iranian strategists must be
seeking to develop a nuclear deterrent capability
for Iran as well.
It is true that Iran has
neighbors with abundant nuclear weapons, but this
does not mean that Iran must follow suit. In fact,
the predominant view among Iranian decision-makers
is that development, acquisition or possession of
nuclear weapons would only undermine Iranian
security. Viable security for Iran can be attained
only through inclusion and regional and global
engagement. Iran's history is the perfect
illustration of its geo-strategic outlook. Over
the past 250 years, Iran has not waged a single
war of aggression against its neighbors, nor has
it initiated any hostilities.
Iran today
is the strongest country in its immediate
neighborhood. It does not need nuclear weapons to
protect its regional interests. In fact, to
augment Iranian influence in the region, it has
been necessary for Iran to win the confidence of
its neighbors, who have historically been
concerned with size and power disparities.
On the other hand, Iran, with its current
state of technological development and military
capability, cannot reasonably rely on nuclear
deterrence against its adversaries in the
international arena or in the wider region of the
Middle East. Moreover, such an unrealistic option
would be prohibitively expensive, draining the
limited economic resources of the country. In sum,
a costly nuclear-weapon option would reduce Iran's
regional influence and increase its global
vulnerabilities without providing any credible
deterrence.
There is also a fundamental
ideological objection to weapons of mass
destruction, including a religious decree issued
by the leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran
prohibiting the development, stockpiling or use of
nuclear weapons.
3. Negotiations with
UK, France and Germany (EU3) 3.1. Iran's Transparency and
Confidence-Building Measures In October
2003, Iran entered into an understanding with
France, Germany and the United Kingdom with the
explicit expectation to open a new chapter of full
transparency, cooperation and access to nuclear
and other advanced technologies. Iran agreed to a
number of important transparency and voluntary
confidence building measures and immediately and
fully implemented them.
It signed and immediately began full
implementation of the Additional Protocol;
It opened its doors to one of the most
expansive and intrusive IAEA inspections;
It provided a detailed account of its peaceful
nuclear activities, all of which had been carried
out in full conformity with its rights and
obligations under the NPT;
It began and has continuously maintained for
the past 2 years a voluntarily suspension of its
rightful enrichment of Uranium as a confidence
building measure;
It further expanded its voluntary suspension
in February and November 2004, following
agreements with EU3 in Brussels and Paris
respectively, to incorporate activities which go
well beyond the original IAEA's definition of
"enrichment" and even "enrichment-related"
activities.
3.1.1. Resolution of
Outstanding Issues Iran has worked closely
with the IAEA, during the course of the last two
years, to deal with the issues and questions
raised about its peaceful nuclear program. All
significant issues, particularly those related to
the sources of HEU (Highly Enriched Uranium) have
now been resolved. Indeed, except for few mostly
speculative questions, nothing more remains to
close this Chapter
3.1.2. No Indication
of Non-Peaceful Activity The Agency's
thorough inspections of Iran have repeatedly
confirmed Iran's assertion that no amount of
inspection and scrutiny will ever show the
slightest diversion into military activity. The
Director-General confirmed in Paragraph 52 of his
November 2003 report that "to date, there is no
evidence that the previously undeclared nuclear
material and activities referred to above were
related to a nuclear weapons programme." After one
more year and over a thousand person-days of the
most rigorous inspections, the Director-General
again confirmed in Paragraph 112 of his November
2004 report that "all the declared nuclear
material in Iran has been accounted for, and
therefore such material is not diverted to
prohibited activities." This conclusion has been
repeatedly reaffirmed in every statement by
responsible authorities of the IAEA.
3.2. Broken Promises and Expanded
Demands by the EU3 Regrettably, Iran
received very little, if anything, in return for
its transparency, cooperation and voluntary
suspension of the exercise of its legitimate and
inalienable right. The European negotiating
partners, pressured by the US, instead of carrying
out their promises of cooperation and open access,
have repeatedly called for expansion of Iran's
voluntary confidence building measures only to be
reciprocated by more broken promises and expanded
requests:
The October 2003 promises of the EU3 on
nuclear cooperation and regional security and
non-proliferation was never even addressed.
The February 2004 written and signed
commitment by the EU3 to "work actively to gain
recognition at the June 2004 Board of the efforts
made by Iran, so that the Board works thereafter
on the basis of Director-General reporting if and
when he deems it necessary, in accordance with the
normal practice pertaining to the implementation
of Safeguards Agreements and the Additional
Protocol" was violated, even though Iran had in
fact carried out its part of the deal by expanding
its suspension to include assembly and component
manufacturing. Instead, the EU3 proposed a harsh
resolution with further unjustifiable demands in
June 2004;
The EU3 never honored its recognition, in the
Paris Agreement of November 2004, of "Iran's
rights under the NPT exercised in conformity with
its obligations under the Treaty, without
discrimination."
In spite of its repeated and publicized
claims, the EU3 never offered, throughout the
negotiations process, any meaningful incentives to
Iran, other than empty and demeaning "promises" of
"consideration" of "possible future cooperation".
4. The Paris Agreement In
November 2004, following extensive negotiations,
Iran and EU3 agreed on a package that has become
known as the Paris Agreement. The objective of the
Paris Agreement was to "to move forward" in
"negotiations, with a view to reaching a mutually
acceptable agreement on long term arrangements.
The agreement will provide objective guarantees
that Iran's nuclear programme is exclusively for
peaceful purposes. It will equally provide firm
guarantees on nuclear, technological and economic
cooperation and firm commitments on security
issues."
The Paris Agreement envisaged
that "while negotiations proceed on a mutually
acceptable agreement on long-term arrangements,"
and "to build further confidence, Iran has
decided, on a voluntary basis, to continue and
extend its suspension to include all enrichment
related and reprocessing activities."
At
the same time, the EU3 recognized "that this
suspension is a voluntary confidence building
measure and not a legal obligation" as well as
"Iran's rights under the NPT exercised in
conformity with its obligations under the Treaty,
without discrimination."
The Paris
Agreement rested on the premise that the purpose
of the Agreement was reaching mutually acceptable
long term arrangements and that suspension was a
temporary measure for as long as negotiations were
making progress. The Agreement further envisaged
specific mechanisms to monitor and assess
progress.
4.1. March Report: Lack of
Progress In March 2005, in accordance with
the Paris Agreement, senior officials from Iran
and the three European countries were mandated to
make an assessment of the progress that had been
achieved. The reports of over three months of
negotiations by the working groups, created by the
Paris Agreement, made it evident that while there
was every prospect for reaching a negotiated
solution based on the Paris Agreement, and while
Iran had made many significant and far-reaching
proposals benefiting both sides, the EU3, faced
with extraneous pressure, were simply trying to
prolong fruitless negotiations. This policy, in
addition to its devastating impact on mutual
trust, was detrimental to Iran's interests and
rights as it attempted to superficially prolong
Iran's voluntary suspension by dragging the
negotiations.
It also became evident that
despite repeated requests by Iran from EU3
representatives to present their proposals and
ideas on the implementation of various provisions
of the Paris Agreement to the working groups, the
European three did not have the intention or the
ability to present its proposals on "objective
guarantees that Iran's nuclear program is
exclusively for peaceful purposes [and] equally …
firm guarantees on nuclear, technological and
economic cooperation and firm commitments on
security issues" as called for in that Agreement.
In short, it became evident that after
massive pressure from the United States in the
winter of 2005, the EU3 had conceded to
unilaterally altering the Paris Agreement into
solely an instrument of de-facto cessation of
Iranian peaceful enrichment program, in violation
of the letter and spirit of that Agreement.
4.2. Iran's Proposals In
February 2005, Iran suggested to the EU3 to ask
the IAEA to develop technical, legal and
monitoring modalities for Iran's enrichment
program as objective guarantees to ensure that
Iran's nuclear program would remain exclusively
for peaceful purposes. While one member of EU3
accepted the suggestion, unfortunately the lack of
consensus among the EU3 prevented resort to the
IAEA as an authoritative and impartial framework
for solving the impasse.
On March 23,
2005, in a clearly stated desire to salvage the
Paris Agreement, Iran offered a collection of
solutions for objective guarantees suggested by
various independent scientist and observers from
the United States and Europe. The package
included: 1. Strong and mutually beneficial
relations between Iran and the EU/EU3, which would
provide the best guarantee for respect for the
concerns of each side; 2. Confinement of Iran's
enrichment program, in order to preclude through
objective technical guarantees any proliferation
concern: a. Open fuel cycle, to remove any
concern about reprocessing and production of
plutonium; b. Ceiling of enrichment at LEU
level; c. Limitation of the extent of the
enrichment program to solely meet the contingency
fuel requirements of Iran's power reactors; d.
Immediate conversion of all enriched Uranium to
fuel rods to preclude even the technical
possibility of further enrichment; e.
Incremental and phased approach to implementation
in order to begin with the least sensitive aspects
of the enrichment program and to gradually move to
enrichment as confidence in the program would be
enhanced;
3.
Legislative and regulatory
measures a.
Additional Protocol; b. Permanent ban on the
development, stockpiling and use of nuclear
weapons through binding national
legislation; c. Enhancement of Iran's export
control regulations;
4. Enhanced
monitoring a. Continued implementation of the
Additional Protocol; and b. Continuous on-site
presence of IAEA inspectors at the conversion and
enrichment facilities to provide unprecedented
added guarantees.
4.2.1. EU3 Inability
to React Extraneous pressure had resulted
in the absence of any desire or ability by EU3 to
even consider any "objective guarantee" as called
for in the Paris Agreement and instead to maneuver
to achieve a de-facto cessation of Iran's lawful
activities. This extraneous political element
precluded even a serious review by EU3 of these
independently worked out proposals, which continue
to have the most credible potential of providing a
basis for allaying all reasonable concerns.
Even Iran's further good-faith effort on
April 29, 2005 to salvage the process by
suggesting the negotiated resumption of the work
of the UCF- which had never had any past alleged
failures, and is virtually proliferation free - at
low capacity and with additional confidence
building and surveillance and monitoring measures
was rejected outright by EU3 officials without
even consideration at political level.
4.2.2. Prelude to Breakdown in Nuclear
Talks Iran replied to such intransigence
with self-restraint to ensure that no opportunity
was spared for an agreed settlement. In a
ministerial meeting in Geneva in May 2005, Iran
agreed to extend the period of full suspension for
another two months, in response to a commitment
made by the EU3 ministers to finally present their
comprehensive package for the implementation of
the Paris Agreement by the end of July or early
August 2005, that is nearly nine months after the
Agreement.
Iran made it clear in Geneva
that any proposal by the EU3 must incorporate
EU3's perception of objective guarantees for the
gradual resumption of the Iranian enrichment
program, and that any attempt to turn objective
guarantees into cessation or long-term suspension
were incompatible with the letter and spirit of
the Paris Agreement and therefore unacceptable to
Iran.
4.2.3. A Further Compromise
Suggested by Iran Eager to salvage the
negotiations, in a further message to the
ministers, Iran offered the most flexible solution
to the EU3 as they were finalizing their
package:
Commencement of the work of Esfahan plant
(UCF)
At low capacity,
Under full scope monitoring,
Agreed arrangements for import of the feed
material and export of the product;
Initial limited operation at Natanz following
further negotiations on a mutually acceptable
arrangement, or
Allowing the IAEA to develop an optimized
arrangement on numbers, monitoring mechanism and
other specifics;
Full scale operation of Natanz:
Based on a negotiated agreement;
Synchronized with the fuel requirements of
future light water reactors.
4.3. EU's
Package: Too Many Demands, No Incentives
Against all its sincere efforts and
maximum flexibility, on 5 August 2005, Iran
received a disappointing proposal. It not only
failed to address Iran's rights for peaceful
development of nuclear technology, but did not
offer anything to Iran in return. It even fell far
short of correcting the illegal and unjustified
restrictions placed on Iran's economic and
technological development, let alone providing
firm guarantees for economic, technological and
nuclear cooperation and firm commitments on
security issues. While Iran had made it crystal
clear that no incentive would be sufficient to
compromise Iran's inalienable right to all aspects
of peaceful nuclear technology, the offers of
incentives incorporated in the proposal were in
and of themselves demeaning and totally
incommensurate with Iran and its vast
capabilities, potentials and requirements.
4.3.1. Extra-Legal Demands of Binding
Commitments from Iran The proposal
self-righteously assumed rights and licenses for
the EU3 which clearly went beyond or even
contravened international law and assumed
obligations for Iran which have no place in law or
practice. It incorporated a series of one-sided
and self serving extra-legal demands from Iran,
ranging from accepting infringements on its
sovereignty to relinquishing its inalienable
rights.
It sought to intimidate Iran to
accept intrusive and illegal inspections well
beyond the Safeguards Agreement or the Additional
Protocol. It asked Iran to abandon most of its
peaceful nuclear program. It further sought to
establish a subjective, discriminatory and
arbitrary set of criteria for the Iranian nuclear
program, which would have effectively dismantled
most of Iran's peaceful nuclear infrastructure,
criteria that if applied globally would only
monopolize the nuclear industry for the
Nuclear-Weapon States.
4.3.2. Vague,
Conditional and Demeaning Offers to Iran
The proposal had absolutely no firm
guarantees or commitments and did not even
incorporate meaningful or serious offers of
cooperation to Iran. It amounted to an elongated
but substantively shortened and self-servingly
revised version of an offer that had been proposed
by EU3 and rejected by Iran in October 2004 even
prior to the Paris Agreement. This indicated that
there was no attempt on the part of EU3 to even
take into consideration the letter and spirit of
the Paris Agreement in their proposal.
This point is further illustrated by the
fact that the proposal never even mentioned the
terms "objective guarantees", "firm guarantees" or
"firm commitments", which were the foundations of
the Paris Agreement. Instead it tried to replace
"objective guarantees" with termination of Iran's
hard gained peaceful nuclear program, and replace
"firm guarantees and firm commitments" with vague,
conditional and partial restatements of existing
obligations.
In the area of security, the
proposal did not go beyond repeating UN Charter
principles or previously-made general commitments.
Worse yet, the proposal even attempted to make
EU3's commitment to these general principles of
international law optional, partial, and
conditional by prefacing the segment with the
following statement: "The EU3 propose that, within
the context of an overall agreement, this section
could include, inter alia, the following mutual
commitments in conformity with the Charter of the
United Nations."
Another example is the
negative security assurances provided in the
proposal by the nuclear-weapons states of the EU3.
The proposal offered the mere repetition - only by
UK and France -- of a universal commitment already
made by all nuclear weapon states in 1995 to all
NPT members. It even made the application of that
commitment to Iran contingent on an overall
agreement by stating "Within the context of an
overall agreement and Iran's fulfillment of its
obligations under the Treaty on the
Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the
United Kingdom and France would be prepared to
reaffirm to Iran the unilateral security
assurances given on 6 April 1995, and referred to
in United Nations Security Council Resolution 984
(1995)."
In the area of technology
cooperation, it failed to include even an
indication - let alone guarantees -- of the EU3
readiness to abandon or ease its violations of
international law and the NPT with regard to
Iran's access to technology. For instance, while
under the NPT, the EU3 is obliged to facilitate
Iran's access to nuclear technology, the proposal
makes a conditional and ambiguous offer "not to
impede participation in open competitive
tendering." And far from the generally advertised
offer of EU cooperation with Iran in construction
of new nuclear power plants, the proposal
generously offered to "fully support long-term
co-operation in the civil nuclear field between
Iran and Russia."
In the area of economic
cooperation, the proposal only included a
conditional recital of already existing
commitments and arrangements. While most of the
document amounted to general promises of future
considerations, even specific offers went no
further than conditional expressions of "readiness
to discuss." Two examples may be sufficient in
this regard: "The EU3 would continue to promote
the sale of aircraft parts to Iran and be willing
to enter into discussion about open procurement of
the sale of civil passenger aircraft to Iran." Or,
"the EU3 and Iran, as well as the Commission,
would discuss possible future oil and gas pipeline
projects."
This proposal made it
self-evident that negotiations were not
"proceeding" as called for in the Paris Agreement,
due to EU3 policy of disregarding the requirements
of that Agreement, reverting to their
pre-Agreement positions, and prolonging a
semblance of negotiations without the slightest
attempt to move forward in fulfilling their
commitments under the Tehran or Paris Agreements.
This protracted continuation was solely designed
to keep the suspension in place for as long as it
takes to make "cessation" a fait accompli. This
was contrary to the letter and spirit of the Paris
Agreement and was not in line with principles of
good faith negotiations.
In short, the
proposal, read objectively in the context of the
negotiating history of the Paris Agreement as well
as its letter and spirit, clearly illustrates the
total abandonment of that Agreement by the EU3,
who have conveniently accused Iran of the same.
4.3.3. Minimal Reaction from Iran
After such a long period of negotiations
and all that Iran had done and continues to do in
order to restore confidence as well as the
flexibility that Iran has shown, there was no
pretext for any further delay in the
implementation of the first phase of Iran's
proposal, by limited resumption of UCF at Esfahan,
which has been free from any past alleged
failures, and is virtually proliferation free. In
this context, Iran informed the Agency of its
decision to resume the uranium conversion
activities at the UCF in Esfahan and asked the
Agency to be prepared for the implementation of
the Safeguards related activities in a timely
manner prior to the resumption of the UCF
activities.
4.4. Who Violated the Paris
Agreement? According to the Paris
Agreement, "the suspension will be sustained while
negotiations proceed on a mutually acceptable
agreement on long-term arrangements." It also
envisaged a mechanism for assessment of progress
within three months. In the meeting of 23 March
2005, it was clear that there had been no progress
over the preceding three months. As a
clearly-stated attempt to salvage the agreement,
Iran made its March 23rd proposal in terms of a
package of objective guarantees.
The
refusal of the EU3 to even consider that package
coupled with their behavior in the course of the
negotiations, their August 2005 proposal and their
repeated statements during the time of the
presentation of that proposal and since then made
in abundantly clear that under pressure from the
US following the Paris Agreement, the EU3 had
decided to unilaterally change the nature of the
Paris Agreement. This amounted to a breach of the
letter and spirit of the Paris Agreement as well
as the principle of good-faith negotiations.
The EU3 negotiating posture and the
empirical evidence of lack of progress had in fact
removed any onus from Iran to continue the
suspension. However, Iran decided to maintain the
suspension of all enrichment related activities
and resume only the UCF process, which is by
definition a pre-enrichment process. Therefore,
the assertion that Iran broke the Paris Agreement
is a self-serving and factually false proposition.
In fact, the reverse is the case.
5.
Iran Goes the Extra Mile for a Negotiated Solution
The Islamic Republic of Iran has always
wanted to ensure that no effort is spared in order
to reach a negotiated resumption of its enrichment
activities. It, therefore, engaged in good faith
and intensive negotiations with the EU3 and other
interested delegations during the Summit of the
United Nations in September 2005 in order to
remove obstacles to the resumption of good-faith
and result-oriented negotiations in accordance
with established rights and obligations under the
NPT. In this context, Iran responded positively to
a proposal which would have removed any concern
about the continued operation of the UCF in
Esfahan at lower capacity for a specific period to
allow negotiations to reach results. Iran also
agreed to resume negotiations with the EU3 and to
consider all proposals that had been presented.
Furthermore, the President of the Islamic
Republic of Iran, in his address to the General
Assembly on September 17, 2005, made yet another
far reaching offer of added guarantee by inviting
international partnership in Iran's enrichment
activities.
While the President reiterated
that Iran's right to have fuel cycle technology
was not negotiable, he presented the following
confidence-building positions and proposals in his
statement:
Readiness for constructive interaction and a
just dialogue in good faith;
Prohibition of pursuit of nuclear weapons in
accordance with religious principles;
Necessity to revitalize the NPT;
Cooperation with the IAEA as the centerpiece
of Iran's nuclear policy;
Readiness to continue negotiations with the
EU3;
Readiness to consider various proposals that
have been presented;
Welcome the proposal of South Africa to move
the process forward;
Acceptance of partnership with private and
public sectors of other countries in the
implementation of uranium enrichment program in
Iran which engages other countries directly and
removes any concerns.
6. Abuse of IAEA
Machinery Regrettably, the EU3, pressed by
the United States, adopted a path of confrontation
in the September 2005 IAEA Board of Governors
meeting. In clear violation of their October 2003
and November 2004 commitments, the EU3moved a
politically motivated and factually and legally
flawed resolution in the IAEA Board of Governors,
and together with the United States and using all
their combined diplomatic and economic leverages
imposed it on the Board through an unprecedented
resort to voting rather than the previously
unbroken practice of consensus.
6.1. No
Legal or Factual Grounds for IAEA "Findings"
The imposed resolution makes a mockery of
the proceedings of the Board of Governors by
rehashing alleged failures that had already been
dealt with in the November 2003 Board. At that
time, despite the existence of ambiguities and
serious questions on important issues such as the
source of HEU contamination, "findings" of
"non-compliance" or "absence of confidence" in the
exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's program were
impossible.
The Board refrained from
making such findings in 2003 not because of a
now-claimed "voluntary restraint" by EU3, but
because such were factually and legally impossible
due to the nature of failures - which were solely
of technical reporting character -- and also
because of the fact that the Director-General had
specifically stated in his November 2003 report
that "to date, there is no evidence that the
previously undeclared nuclear material and
activities referred to above were related to a
nuclear weapons programme."
It is ironic
that after two years of cooperation, over 1200
person/days of intrusive inspections, resolution
of nearly all outstanding issues particularly the
foreign source of contamination, and after
repeated reiteration of the finding of
non-diversion including the conclusion in the IAEA
November 2004 report that "all the declared
nuclear material in Iran has been accounted for,
and therefore such material is not diverted to
prohibited activities," the imposed resolution
discovered ex post facto that the failures
"detailed in Gov/2003/75 [the aforementioned
report of November 2003] constitutes
non-compliance."
6.2. The Real Story:
Pressure to Deny Iran's Inalienable
Rights While the resolution attempted to
create a convenient - albeit false - pretext of
these alleged and old reporting failures for its
so-called "findings", it is abundantly clear that
the reason for production of this resolution was
by no means those alleged failures, but instead
the resumption of Iran's perfectly legal and
safeguarded activities in Esfahan.
In this
context, it must be underlined that all States
party to the NPT, without discrimination, have an
inalienable right to produce nuclear energy for
peaceful purposes. As this right is "inalienable",
it cannot be undermined or curtailed under any
pretext. Any attempt to do so, would be an attempt
to undermine a pillar of the Treaty and indeed the
Treaty itself.
Iran, like any other
Non-Nuclear-Weapon State, had no obligation to
negotiate and seek agreement for the exercise of
its "inalienable" right, nor could it be obligated
to suspend it. Suspension of Uranium enrichment,
or any derivative of such suspension, is a
voluntary and temporary confidence-building
measure, effectuated by Iran in order to enhance
cooperation and close the chapter of denials of
access to technology imposed by the west on Iran.
It is not an end in itself, nor can it be
construed or turned into a permanent abandonment
of a perfectly lawful activity, thereby
perpetuating, rather than easing, the pattern of
denial of access to technology.
The
suspension of Uranium enrichment has been in place
for nearly two years, with all its economic and
social ramifications affecting thousands of
families. The EU3 failed to remove any of the
multifaceted restrictions on Iran's access to
advanced and nuclear technology. In a twist of
logic, it even attempted to prolong the
suspension, thereby trying to effectively widen
its restrictions instead of fulfilling its
commitments of October 2003 and November 2004 to
remove them.
As the IAEA Board of
Governors had underlined in its past and current
resolution, suspension "is a voluntary, non-legal
binding confidence building measure". When the
Board itself explicitly recognizes that suspension
is "not a legally-binding obligation", no wording
by the Board can turn this voluntary measure into
an essential element for anything. In fact the
Board of Governors has no factual or legal ground,
nor any statutory power, to make or enforce such a
demand, or impose ramifications as a consequence
of it.
7. The Way Forward: No Coercion,
Good-Faith Negotiations The recently
imposed resolution on the IAEA Board of Governors
is devoid of any legal authority, and any attempt
to implement it will be counter-productive and
will leave Iran with no option but to suspend its
voluntary confidence building measures. The threat
of referral to the Security Council will only
further complicate the issue and will not alter
Iran's resolve to exercise its legitimate and
inalienable rights under the NPT.
At the
same time, Iran is determined to pursue good-faith
interaction and negotiations, based on equal
footing, as the centerpiece of its approach to the
nuclear issue. A diplomatic and negotiated
framework is the desired approach for a successful
outcome and Iran is ready to consider all
constructive and effective proposals.
Iran
welcomes consultations and negotiations with other
countries in order to facilitate the work of the
Agency and calls on the EU3 to replace the course
of confrontation with interaction and negotiation
to reach understanding and agreement.
The
Islamic Republic of Iran is committed to
non-proliferation and the elimination of nuclear
weapons, and considers nuclear weapons and
capability to produce or acquire them as
detrimental to its security. Iran will continue to
abide by its obligations under the NPT and will
continue to work actively for the establishment of
a zone free from weapons of mass destruction in
the Middle East.
