The United States has tentatively endorsed a U.N. proposal for France and Russia to refine a large portion of Iran's low-enriched uranium for use at a Tehran medical research reactor, eliminating immediate concerns that Tehran could produce enough material for a nuclear weapon, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 21).
(Oct. 22) -
U.S. nuclear negotiator Daniel Poneman, right, arrives Tuesday at the International Atomic Energy Agency's headquarters in Vienna, Austria, to discuss a tentative deal for enrichment of Iranian uranium. The United States and France have expressed support for a draft agreement proposed yesterday (Samuel Kubani/Getty Images).
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei, who presented the draft plan yesterday at talks in Vienna, Austria, asked the governments of Iran, France, Russia and the United States to approve the proposal by tomorrow.
"We greatly appreciate IAEA Director General ElBaradei's skillful efforts and dedication to pursue this initiative of getting Iran to send out their low-enriched uranium to third countries," said U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly. "We think that the draft agreement presented by him today in Vienna was a very positive step."
"It was acceptable to our team out there, but we want to give it ... a chance to be seen by a broader range of people in the interagency here," he said. "And we expect by Friday to be able to say that we approve it" (Agence France-Presse I/Google News, Oct. 21).
France also expressed support for the plan, despite Iran's stated refusal to cooperate with Paris as part of the deal. Under a compromise arrangement, France would only carry out activities under contract with Russia.
"It is a proposal that suits us," said Jacques Audibert, France's top delegate to multilateral talks on Iran's disputed nuclear activities.
"The conditions sought by France are part of the IAEA document," the official said, noting that the plan would demand that Iran send roughly 2,600 pounds of uranium abroad before the end of 2009 (Agence France-Presse II/Tocqueville Connection, Oct. 21).
The plan would also require Iran to deliver the entire quantity in a single shipment, rather than spreading out the transfer over a longer period, one French official told the Washington Post (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, Oct. 22).
The plan "broadly suits everyone," Audibert said. "What remains to be seen is whether the Iranians are ready to accept it" (AFP II).
Even if Iran accepted the proposal, Washington and its allies would still have to resolve concerns that Tehran might harbor military intentions in pursuing uranium enrichment, a process that can produce low-enriched uranium for nuclear power plants but also highly enriched material for nuclear weapons, diplomats told the Post. Iran has insisted its atomic ambitions are strictly peaceful, and for years has refused to halt its enrichment program in exchange for diplomatic and financial benefits from the five permanent U.N. Security Council member nations and Germany.
Bringing Iranian uranium under international management, together with last month's public revelation of the nation's unfinished Qum enrichment facility, would mark "a significant setback to Iran's nuclear weapons activities," said David Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security.
"The solution is suspension [of Iranian uranium enrichment], and this is a step toward that," he said, contending that the agreement would give world powers "plenty of time" to negotiate a halt to the program. Iran would need between nine and 12 months to replace enough of its low-enriched uranium to power a nuclear weapon if it continued refining the material, the Post reported (Kessler, Washington Post).
Iran indicated it would maintain its right to continue refining its low-enriched uranium even if it accepted the proposal, AFP reported today.
"As we have said before, we will not give up our rights," state media quoted Iranian Atomic Energy Organization head Ali Akbar Salehi as saying. "Enrichment to 5 percent is the highest level that we want for our [power] reactors. But that does not mean that we will renounce our right to enrich uranium level to a higher level."
"Iran has the capability to enrich uranium to 20 percent but prefers to obtain the fuel from abroad," he said. "This policy has numerous hidden messages that I would rather not go into."
Weapon-grade uranium has an enrichment level around 90 percent (Agence France-Presse III/Spacewar.com, Oct. 22).
Some Western diplomats expressed skepticism that Tehran would accept the plan, which it had tentatively agreed to earlier this month, the Financial Times reported yesterday.
“Iran came to the talks highly resistant to the offer," one official said, referring to this week's meetings aimed at finalizing the agreement. "Its delegation came up with a series of proposals about how it might transfer less of the fuel than the U.S. and France are proposing or about removing it at a later date or keeping it in Iran.
“They were given lots of opportunities to come back and change their position but refused to do so,” the diplomat said. “They have effectively been rejecting the proposal for the last two days in Vienna. It is very hard to imagine that within 48 hours they will turn round and accept it.”
“The last two days in Vienna have been something of a reality check for Obama’s officials on just how difficult and intransigent Iran really is,” a European official added (James Blitz, Financial Times, Oct. 21).
"Let's definitely have modest expectations here. There's a lot for [Iran and the United States] to get through as they consider taking this dialogue further. It's going to take much more for any tentative openness to take hold, but this could prove to be the first step in turning the trajectory of U.S.-Iranian relations," Trita Parsi, head of the National Iranian American Council, told the Christian Science Monitor.
"Much has been made of how this deal would allow a testing time for the U.S. and its partners to measure Iran's intentions without the nuclear program breathing so heavily down their necks. But the Iranians see it as a test as well," Parsi said. "From their perspective, they've done things in the past aimed at building confidence on the American side, but they feel it hasn't been appreciated."
"To my way of thinking, [the Iranians have] taken a page from the North Korean playbook," said Gary Schmitt, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "They sense there are some advantages to looking like they are cooperative and to in fact being cooperative" (Howard LaFranchi, Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 21).
Meanwhile, Paris indicated that the French and Israeli militaries routinely share information on Iranian nuclear activities, the Associated Press reported today.
"We have to know what's going on so we exchange our information," French Defense Minister Herve Morin said.
Israel has long suggested it could launch airstrikes on Iran's nuclear facilities to stave off the nuclear threat posed by Tehran (Associated Press/Ynetnews, Oct. 22).
“There’s a part of this that’s about getting our diplomacy with Iran started, and a part that’s about convincing the Israelis that there’s no reason to drop hints that they are going to reach for a military solution,” one high-level U.S. official told the New York Times (David Sanger, New York Times, Oct. 22).
Jerusalem confirmed today that an Israeli Atomic Energy Commission representative met in Cairo last month with a high-level Iranian official, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
"It is true," IAEC spokeswoman Yael Doron said by telephone. She added, though, that no "face-to-face discussion" had occurred (Xinhua News Agency, Oct. 22).
Several meetings took place on Sept. 29 and Sept. 30 between Meirav Zafary-Odiz, the Israeli nuclear body's policy and arms control director, and Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency Haaretz reported. Envoys from other nations also took part in the meeting, which addressed the potential to fight nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and declare a nuclear weapon-free zone in the region, the newspaper reported.
A spokeswoman for the Israeli atomic commission, though, said today that "no dialogue or interaction" had taken place. The meeting, allegedly arranged under the International Commission on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament, would have marked the first encounter between officials from the two nations since 1979, according to the newspaper.
The Iranian Atomic Energy Commission discounted the report as "sheer lies" (Yossi Melman, Haaretz, Oct. 22).
Elsewhere, sources indicated that Iran has not paid Russia for an advanced air-defense system that Moscow is under contract to deliver to the Middle Eastern state, United Press International reported. Some analysts have expressed concern that Iran could use the Russian-built S-300 defenses to help protect its nuclear facilities from air attacks (United Press International, Oct. 21).