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Iran Makes Key Nuclear Concession in EU Talks •
Fareed Zakaria | Tag-Teaming The Mullahs •
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Iran Allegedly Builds Secret Facility for Nuke Program
Deutsche Welle
Sunday 28 November 2004
Iran has been constructing a secret tunnel since October to continue uranium enrichment, despite a deal two weeks ago to freeze the program, German news weekly Der Spiegel reported in an issue to be published Monday.
Der Spiegel, citing a secret service file, said that Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had personally ordered the facility built last month near the uranium enrichment site in Isfahan that is under UN observation. The tunnel, which the magazine said is out of the view of spy satellites, is intended to house a production site for large amounts of uranium UF6 gas which can be enriched in gas centrifuges - a key step in the building of a nuclear bomb. The clandestine project is being led by a task force that answers directly to Khamenei, the report said.
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Ayatollah Khamenei is said to have ordered a secret nuclear facility.
(Photo: AP) |
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But in Tehran, foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said the report was "baseless" and that it was ridiculous to suggest Iran would even try to hide such a facility. "The ministry of roads and transportation builds lots of tunnels in Iran. But this news is baseless. In the world today, with all the radars and spy satellites which see everything, how can we hide a tunnel?" he said.
Iran insists it has declared all of its nuclear facilities to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear watchdog, which has been probing the country for two years. And despite talks having broken off ahead of an IAEA meeting Monday, Tehran remains confident that it is close to a deal with the EU over a freeze of uranium enrichment activities.
"There is no deadlock. We are on the way forward and the corrections the Europeans have made in the text of the resolution (for the UN meeting) are positive," said the Iranian spokesman in Vienna, Hossein Moussavian, according to AFP news agency.
The Iran-EU talks broke off Saturday, opening the door to moves towards UN sanctions. A diplomat close to the talks said Britain, France and Germany had given Iran until late Sunday to agree to a full freeze, including 20 disputed centrifuges, or they would table a tough resolution at the IAEA meeting.
"Not the end of the world"
Moussavian's comments were in contrast to more confrontational statements being made in Tehran; Iran on Sunday stuck by its demand that the 20 centrifuges be exempted from its suspension pledge and shrugged off the danger of being referred to the UN Security Council as "not the end of the world."
The United States wants the IAEA to bring Iran before the Security Council, which could impose punishing economic sanctions, for what Washington says is a secret nuclear weapons program. But EU negotiators Britain, France and Germany have for over a year been stressing a policy of "constructive engagement" to get Iran to cooperate with the IAEA and have proposed an accommodating resolution to the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors, in a meeting that began Thursday and was on Friday adjourned until Monday.
Diplomats said Iran was sending mixed signals as hardliners in Tehran are resisting cutting a nuclear deal. The hardliners "don't trust the process of negotiation. They say that Europe is asking too much and not giving Iran anything," a diplomat close to the talks said.
The EU has promised increased trade, which would include helping Iran get into the World Trade Organization (WTO), and a host of other incentives, but these are to come in a long-term agreement to be worked out after the suspension is in effect.
Iran Wants R&D Exemption
But another problem, which could torpedo the talks, is that Iran is insisting on its right to continue nuclear research. Iran had agreed with the European trio before the IAEA meeting on the enrichment freeze. But it now says it wants to continue "research and development" with the 20 centrifuges, the machines used to enrich uranium to make nuclear fuel but also what can be the raw material for atomic weapons.
"The question of research and development has nothing to do with a suspension," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said.
The crisis is now at a crucial point since the European trio, who insist on an unconditional suspension of all enrichment activities, are losing patience with Iran, and threatening to join the hardline US side, diplomats said.
"We have no progress. It is up to the Iranians now to ponder what they will do," a European diplomat close to the talks told AFP Saturday after Iran-EU negotiations broke off and a Sunday deadline for Iran to signal compliance was set. "They have a very serious decision to make," the diplomat said.
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Iran Makes Key Nuclear Concession in EU Talks
By Louis Charbonneau
Reuters
Sunday 28 November 2004
Vienna - Iran formally withdrew its demand to exempt sensitive research from a freeze of key parts of its nuclear program - a last-minute bid to remove the threat of U.N. economic sanctions, Western diplomats said Sunday.
Iran's request to be permitted to operate 20 centrifuges, which enrich uranium for use as fuel in power plants or weapons, nearly wrecked an agreement it reached with the European Union to halt all work linked to making atomic fuel.
A diplomat close to the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency told Reuters: "The IAEA received a letter from Iran regarding the 20 centrifuges. It seems to cover all the elements and appears to be acceptable (to the EU)."
Details of the letter were not immediately available, but a Western diplomat in Vienna said it appeared to be enough to save Iran from the threat of a referral to the U.N. Security Council and possible economic sanctions.
The United States accuses Tehran of wanting to build a nuclear bomb. Iran, though oil-rich, says its nuclear program is aimed solely at generating electricity.
It was unclear what France, Britain and Germany, the "Big Three" running the talks with Iran on behalf of the European Union, thought of Iran's concession.
Hossein Mousavian, the head of Iran's delegation to the IAEA board of governors, told the semi-official Mehr news agency that Iran had reached an accord with the EU.
"We have reached an agreement with the (IAEA) and also with London, Paris and Berlin," he was quoted as saying. "Iran requested the centrifuges will not be sealed off. But those centrifuges will be under the agency's surveillance."
One Western diplomat told Reuters the decision not to seal the centrifuges but to monitor them with surveillance cameras was a "face-saving mechanism" that would enable Tehran to say that it had not backed down on the issue of the 20 centrifuges.
Mousavian: EU Resolution Ready
Mousavian also said that the EU three now had a draft of a resolution that was to be put to the IAEA's 35-member board.
"I predict the three EU countries' resolution will be approved by the members of the board," Mousavian said.
The resolution, which has been softened at least twice to accommodate Iran's many demands, is intended to make Iran's voluntary freeze a binding commitment.
It was unclear whether the Europeans had caved in to some Iranian demands for the addition of some new language to the EU draft in exchange for Tehran's renunciation of the centrifuges. Tehran had wanted a clause guaranteeing its "right" to enrich uranium in the future, something the EU did not like.
A fundamental problem in the negotiations is that the EU wants the freeze, once implemented, to be transformed into a termination of Iran's enrichment program. In exchange, the EU will offer Iran a package of political and economic incentives.
But the Iranians reject a termination of the program, calling enrichment a sovereign right they will never abandon.
The EU trio first sought the enrichment freeze in October 2003 to try to allay fears that Iran was using its nuclear energy program to develop bombs. But that deal fell apart when the Iranians resumed production of centrifuge components.
Western diplomats said that Washington believes Tehran cannot be trusted and was not happy with either the EU-Iran deal or the latest EU draft, but would make no attempt to block them.
"They're giving the EU enough rope to hang themselves," a non-U.S. Western diplomat told Reuters.
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Tag-Teaming The Mullahs
By Fareed Zakaria
Newsweek
06 December 2004 Issue
Military strikes would do limited damage to Iran's nuclear facilities, rally the country round the regime and isolate.
Anyone who tells you that he has a clear solution to the problem posed by Iran's nuclear ambitions is not being honest. It's about as tough as foreign-policy problems get. There are two basic approaches to prevent Iran from going nuclear: coercion and engagement. Both have serious flaws. But for either to have even a chance of working, the crucial player will not be America, but Europe.
If coercion means American military strikes, it is an utterly counterproductive idea. Such a move would do limited damage to Iran's nuclear facilities, rally the country round the regime, isolate the United States further in the world and probably prompt the Iranians to retaliate by sponsoring terror attacks against our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The United States has often faltered by not appreciating the strength of nationalism around the world-most recently in Iraq. Iranian nationalism is particularly strong. Iranians have long harbored deep suspicions about foreigners and particularly Americans. It was Iran, under the liberal Prime Minister Mossadeq, that first nationalized its oil industry. It was Iran, under the pro-American shah, that initiated the oil hikes of 1973. And it is Iran that remains the only Middle Eastern country to have deposed a regime largely because it was pro-American. American military strikes will not be welcomed by the population.
The strategy behind strikes, for many Washington hawks, is not disarmament but regime change. They hope that by turning up the heat we will topple the current regime, which they believe is teetering on the edge. But this seems highly unlikely. Iranians are clearly unhappy with the corrupt and dictatorial regime they live under. They are also, however, wary of revolutions, having suffered through one for the last 25 years. Iranian protesters and reformers have hoped for greater mass action than they have gotten. The regime for its part has found a way to use Iran's vast oil revenues to create a large patronage network and to bribe the Army and secret police. One day this evil regime will pass from the scene. But long before that, Iran will go nuclear. A long-term vision will not solve a short-term danger.
If military strikes are not a good option, engagement isn't great, either. Some say that we aren't offering Iran real rewards. Perhaps that's true. They say that the Bush administration is unwilling to offer a "grand bargain" -normal relations with the United States in return for no nukes. Also true. But there is little evidence that better U.S. policy would produce an Iranian response. As Kenneth Pollack writes in his fine new book, "The Persian Puzzle," "It is the Iranian government that has consistently rejected engagement with the United States, whereas the U.S. has been ready for the Grand Bargain for twenty years." Recall that it was Ronald Reagan who sent the Iranians a cake, a Bible and his national-security adviser, hoping to begin a thaw. But many in Tehran believed-and still believe-that confrontation with the United States benefits them.
That's where Europe comes in. So far Tehran has not really borne much of a cost for its behavior. American sanctions have been toothless because the rest of the world eagerly trades with Iran. As the Iranians often point out, it is not they who are isolated but the Americans. Europe has now joined hands with the United States and is offering Iran a choice-nuclear weapons or normal trade, but not both.
It might well work. As Iran scholar Ray Takeyh points out in the journal Survival, there is a vigorous, ongoing debate in Iran over the advantages of having a nuclear capacity. Many within the regime argue that if operating nuclear facilities means isolation from the world economy, that would be too costly and ultimately unnecessary. If Europe threatened sanctions as well as offered rewards, it would strengthen the case of those who want a modern Iran more than they want a nuclear Iran.
This might read like wishful thinking. It requires that Europe be united, bold and decisive. It requires the United States and Europe to coordinate policy closely. But look at what is happening in response to the fraud in Ukraine. Europe is united and has been tough. Washington and Europe are acting together. And if they persevere and refuse to legitimize the election results or deal with the new regime, they will prevail.
There is a lesson here. Despite the surface clashes over the last two years, America and Europe have very similar visions of what kind of world they want. And when the two sides join forces, articulating their common ideals, interests and sense of historical destiny, the combined force is unstoppable.
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