Washington rejects a German
compromise on Iran By Gareth
Porter
WASHINGTON - German Defense
Minister Franz Josef Jung's suggestion that Iran
should be allowed to carry out a limited
enrichment program under the supervision of the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has
exposed a fundamental crack in the facade of unity
among the six countries that have given Iran a
proposal aimed at halting all its enrichment
activities.
The United States immediately
insisted that the German government had told it
that the story, reported by Reuters on June 28,
was "erroneous". However, Berlin never retracted
Jung's statement, although it reiterated its
support for the proposal to Iran from the five
permanent United Nations Security Council members
plus Germany (P5+1).
The proposal offers a
number of economic incentives in return for
Iranian suspension of
enrichment and lists possible economic measures
against Iran if refuses. It allows a return to
enrichment in the indefinite future only with
Security Council approval.
The episode
highlights the fears of many in Europe that the
present refusal by the P5+1 to compromise on the
enrichment issue will produce the opposite outcome
- an unrestrained and unmonitored Iranian
enrichment program.
In an interview with
Reuters last week, Jung was asked whether Iran
should be allowed to enrich uranium under the
scrutiny of the Vienna-based IAEA. He answered, "I
think so."
Jung said he understood US
reservations about allowing any enrichment
activities, but added, "One cannot forbid Iran
from doing what other countries in the world are
doing in accordance with international law. The
key point is whether a step toward nuclear weapons
is taken. This cannot happen."
Jung said
close IAEA oversight could show the world whether
Tehran's nuclear program was as peaceful as it
says, according to Reuters. "IAEA inspections can
provide those assurances through monitoring," he
was quoted as saying. "That is not a problem."
US State Department spokesman Adam Ereli
said the following day that the German government
had been contacted about the interview and had
told the United States, "This is an erroneous
story."
But German government spokesman
Ulrich Wilhelm neither denied nor renounced Jung's
position. Instead he told Reuters that Germany
stood behind the June 6 offer to Iran.
Jung's expressed willingness to allow
enrichment by Iran nevertheless puts Germany
sharply at odds with the administration of US
President George W Bush and America's British and
French allies, which are determined to demand a
complete halt to all Iranian uranium-enrichment
activities.
It also departs dramatically
from the position represented in the formal
proposal from the P5+ given to the Iranians on
June 6.
That proposal, which has not been
made public, was based on the premise that IAEA
inspections cannot be relied on to indicate
whether or not Iran's nuclear program is being
used for weapons development. The proposal would
not permit any enrichment activities until the six
powers themselves were prepared to allow it.
As reported by the New York Times on June
8, the six powers had reached an understanding
among themselves that, even if Iran's nuclear
program were to be given the IAEA seal of
approval, Tehran could not resume enrichment
unless the Security Council voted unanimously to
permit it.
A senior European official was
quoted by the Times as saying, "The package does
not say that if the IAEA gives Iran a clean bill
of health that it will be the end of the
moratorium. It simply means we will re-examine
it."
That would deprive the more objective
IAEA of any role in judging Iran's good faith and
give the US a veto power over Iran's enrichment
program. The Bush administration is well known to
have no intention of allowing Iran to have any
enrichment under any circumstances.
A
European official who asked not to be identified
said on June 29 that the Iranians are well aware
that the proposal would give the US a veto power
over any Iranian resumption of enrichment.
"The Iranians see it as a trap," the
official said. "They would like to discuss the
veto power of the United States over the question
of confidence building."
Until Jung's
interview, the six countries behind the June 6
proposal to Iran had been careful not to say
anything suggesting disagreements until Iran had
replied. But it has become increasingly clear in
recent weeks that Iran will not accept the P5+1
suspension demand.
Jung's call for a
compromise indicates a high level of concern in
Berlin that the P5+1 position on enrichment will
create a dangerous diplomatic impasse.
The
United States, Britain and France appear poised to
initiate a move for a tough Security Council
resolution if Iran does not respond positively to
the proposal by mid-July. On June 28, Reuters
quoted a Western diplomat as saying that if Iran
does not produce a firm pledge to do so by July
12, the coalition would "dust off a Security
Council resolution we had been looking into to
make a suspension mandatory".
Both Russia
and China have publicly opposed sanctions against
Iran. Germany has said it has not ruled out
economic sanctions but has never committed itself
to that course.
If the six powers fail to
negotiate a compromise with Iran in the coming
months, Iran may proceed with an enrichment
program that would not be constrained either by
international agreement or by strict IAEA
monitoring
Iranian officials have offered
on several occasions since March 2005 to negotiate
an agreement that would limit the number of
centrifuges that Iran could use to enrich uranium
and place the program under the strictest possible
IAEA monitoring. Those proposals were dismissed
officially by Britain, France and Germany.
If Iran were limited by an agreement to
the 164 centrifuges currently in use, the US State
Department has calculated that it would take a
little over 13 years to produce enough highly
enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon.
But
in April, Iran informed the IAEA that it plans to
construct 3,000 centrifuges at Natanz by next
April. Once Iran masters a 3,000-centrifuge
cascade it will be able to produce enough enriched
uranium for a nuclear weapon within 271 days,
according to the US calculations.
Some
European officials, including the Germans, have
long believed that the EU-3 - France, Britain and
Germany - would eventually have to agree to a
limited enrichment program. Last October, an
unnamed European official who had been involved in
the negotiations with Iran said in an interview
with the Brussels-based International Crisis
Group, "In the end, we are going to have to move
further and put more creative ideas on the table,
and a supervised, strictly limited enrichment
scheme on Iranian soil may be one of them."
The Bush administration appears bent on
maintaining a confrontation with Iran that
precludes any compromise on enrichment. But the
Jung interview suggests that there will be frantic
efforts in the coming weeks by some in the
coalition to head off a diplomatic disaster on
Iran's nuclear program.
Gareth
Porter is a historian and national-security
policy analyst. His latest book, Perils of
Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War
in Vietnam, was published in June 2005.
