Nuclear chill to descend in Geneva
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
After a year-long hiatus in diplomacy, Iran and the "Iran Six" nations are
gearing up for another round of negotiations in Geneva next week. Expectations
on both sides are low and the environment polluted by the recent flurry of
anti-Iran activities, ranging from tough new sanctions to nuclear terrorism and
sabotage in Iran, to the demonization of the Islamic Republic by US officials
who have used the WikiLeaks releases to underscore Iran's isolation.
In a small dose of pre-talk diplomacy, both US Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton and her Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki, are attending a
security conference in Bahrain, sponsored by a London think-tank, and the
chances are that they will use the
opportunity to get a better insight of each other's mindset going into the
Geneva talks.
After this week's assassination of a top Iranian nuclear scientist and the
injuring of another, which Tehran attributed to United States and Israeli
agents, Iranian officials have understandably stiffened their posture and are
in no mood to appear as unduly flexible. The big question is what are the
realistic expectations of each side in Geneva talks?
Officially, the US is sticking to its long-standing demand of Iran's full
cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the complete
cessation of uranium-enrichment activities. Iran's primary goal, on the other
hand, is to generate interest in this past May's so-called Tehran Declaration,
signed by Iran, Turkey and Brazil, whereby Iran consented to ship 1,200kg of
its low-enriched uranium to Turkey for temporary safekeeping in exchange for
the delivery of 120kg of nuclear fuel for its Tehran reactor which produces
radioisotopes for treating cancer patients in Iran.
The "Iran Six" nations at the negotiating table with Iran in Switzerland will
be the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council - the
United States, Russia, China, France, Britain - and Germany. But others may
also be present.
"There may be more parties at the [Geneva] talks," Iranian President Mahmud
Ahmadinejad stated recently, alluding first and foremost to Turkey and Brazil;
this while both Iranian and Turkish politicians and media continue to hammer
the question of why Iran's proposal of holding the talks in Turkey was turned
down by the European Union's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton?
Depending on last-minute diplomacy, Turkey may manage to slip through the doors
and sit at the table - the ball is in Washington's court to take a second look
at the specifics of the Tehran Declaration, which was readily dismissed as
"defective" by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton within hours of its
signing.
Indeed, there are several decent arguments in favor of adopting the Tehran
Declaration. First, any argument that Iran should dish out two or three times
as much of its low-enriched uranium (LEU) does not make sense from the point of
view of the Tehran reactor's need, ie, the 1200 kg covers a 10-year cycle of
fuel (See New
signs of Iran nuclear flexibility Asia Times Online, November 24,
2010), as confirmed by various nuclear experts.
Second, a "narrow-focus" on the fuel swap is not tantamount to ignoring a
Western-favored "broad-based" negotiation. On the contrary, zeroing in on the
details of the fuel swap could prove a timely catalyst for widening the themes
up for discussion, by acting as confidence-builder and, perhaps, convincing
Iran to show some flexibility on both transparency issues as well as the scope
of its spinning centrifuges. For example, Iran may agree to adopt "dry
spinning" without enriching for sometime, the so-called stand-by option.
Third, Iran's agreement to ship out a bulk of its LEU should be welcomed by the
West, irrespective of their reservations that the volume is not big enough - a
tangible first step should not be ignored for the sake of unrealistic
expectations that are not justifiable from the prism of IAEA's technical
cooperation standards.
The "Vienna Group", consisting of US, Russia, France and the IAEA, may need to
reconvene if the generalities of the fuel swap deal are adopted in Geneva next
week. Such a fuel-swap compromise would definitely represent a mini-victory for
both sides and a major ice-breaker in terms of reducing tensions. It would also
raise the ire of Israelis and their Washington lobbyists thirsting for another
war.
Fourth, the June 2008 proposal by the "Iran Six" to Iran is still on the table,
according to Ashton. This involves an array of economic, security, and nuclear
assistance offers to Iran that could conceivably be further fine tuned in
Geneva, such as by the US showing willingness to participate in the
modernization of the Tehran reactor, which was initially built by the US before
Argentina redesigned it years ago.
Needless to say, for the Obama administration to be able to seriously consider
such concrete steps in light of the US's domestic contingencies, it must show
that it has somehow reached a breakthrough in bracketing Iran's proliferation
risk. A number of Iranian experts, such as professor Kayhan Barzegar, in an
article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, have suggested that Iran may well
re-adopt the intrusive Additional Protocol of the nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty, thus allowing the US and its allies to claim a significant concession
from Iran.
If the Geneva talks fail and the US blocks Iran's request from the IAEA for
cooperation on fuel delivery to its medical reactor, then we can safely expect
a negative backlash in terms of Iran's cooperation with the atomic agency,
which has been complaining of insufficient Iranian cooperation with its
inspectors.
This is not a desirable outcome for the US, which claims to support Iranian
people, who would be sure to turn against US President Barack Obama if
humanitarian assistance to cancer patients were denied. And in any case, should
any failure of talks be followed by military aggression against Iran, the fury
of a united Iran striking back is all but a foregone conclusion.
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