VIENNA, 7 March 2005 — Negotiators from Iran and the European Union meet in Geneva this week for new talks on Tehran’s nuclear policy, with Iran flatly refusing to accede to the Europeans’ key demand that it abandon uranium enrichment, a fuel process which can also make atom bombs. Iran’s top nuclear official Hassan Rohani warned Saturday that his country would never agree to a permanent halt on enriching uranium.
“We cannot have and we will not have negotiations with the Europeans if what they want is an end” to uranium enrichment, Rohani told reporters in Tehran. EU negotiators Britain, France and Germany are trying to convince Iran to dismantle nuclear fuel work which the United States says is part of a covert atomic weapons development, in return for economic and political rewards. But Iran insists its nuclear program is purely for civilian energy needs.
Iran agreed with the EU trio in November to suspend uranium enrichment as a “confidence-building measure” to show its nuclear intentions are peaceful, but stressed the halt would be temporary. The suspension opened the way to talks on trade, technology and security concessions to Iran if it abandons enrichment as an “objective guarantee” that it will not develop nuclear weapons.
A diplomat close to the EU-Iran talks which began in December told AFP that while the language from Iran is hard line, it is no different than what the Iranians have been saying for months. The diplomat said the Europeans “are waiting to see what it really means,” when a fourth round of talks starts in Geneva tomorrow and Thursday.
Iranian nuclear negotiator Hossein Moussavian was yesterday quoted by the Iranian news agency IRNA as saying the Europeans had so far “not shown any seriousness” and that Iran doubted “their capacity” to strike a deal. “Europe has not presented any plan or proposition and has taken no initiative regarding objective guarantees,” he said, warning that Iran’s suspension of sensitive nuclear fuel work could be in danger.
Non-proliferation experts said, however, that Iran may yet cut a deal with the EU, although this may not take place before Iranian presidential elections in June. “I do not think any progress has been made because Iran has not decided yet whether it is prepared to accept limits on its enrichment program,” Gary Samore, from London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies, said while in Tehran for a nuclear technology conference.
“In the run-up to the presidential elections, I do not think any of the Iranian officials have any interest in showing any flexibility because they will be strongly criticized for giving away Iran’s rights,” Samore said.
Meanwhile, the United States is now more open to helping the EU offer incentives to Iran. Samore said it was “important that (US President George W.) Bush has crossed a psychological threshold and accepted the principle that any agreement with the EU is going to have to include active American support.”
Joseph Cirincione, from the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said any deal would have to be a “win-win deal — where Iran has to be able to come back to its people with victory.” Still, he said: “I think the EU has a real chance of reaching an agreement with Iran.”
Iranian official Cyrus Naseri had proposed at a meeting of the UN atomic agency in Vienna last week for Iran to “have fuel production and we can have arrangements that will provide credible assurance to our interlocutors and to the international community that nothing will be diverted” from peaceful use.
A senior European diplomat said that this was, however, unacceptable since the idea was to halt all enrichment activities.
