IranTalks with Iran: window for peaceful resolution closing
The second round of talks between the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany and Iran over the military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program opened yesterday in Baghdad; the time frame for the talks between the six powers and Iran is tacitly accepted by all sides: if the current round of talks fails, and the harsher sanctions on Iran, which go into effect on 1 July, do not persuade Iran, by the end of the year, to cease and desist its nuclear weapons activities, then the path will be clear for a military attack on Iran – by Israel, the United States, or both – sometime during the first three or four months of 2013
The second round of talks between the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany and Iran over the military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program opened yesterday in Baghdad. The two sides exchanged detailed proposals, which were discussed during the day-long meetings. The discussions will continue today.
The content of the Iranian proposal was not made public. Haaretz reports that Catherine Ashton, the EU official in charge of the organization’s foreign affairs, presented the world powers’ proposal to the Iranians orally, not in a written document. The proposal includes two specific requirements: Iran should stop uranium enrichment to the 20 percent level at the underground Fordo facility near Qom; and that Iran send abroad the 100 kilograms or so of uranium enriched to the 20 percent level already in its possession.
The six powers said that if Iran accepted these two requirements, it would, in return, receive the following: a shipment of nuclear fuel from one of the six powers for the nuclear research reactor in Tehran; help in upgrading an old Iranian research reactor which has severe safety problems; and help in upgrading the Bushehr reactor, both in safety and in possible assistance in the establishment of a new nuclear research reactor.
The proposal also includes replacement parts for Iran’s civilian aviation fleet, which suffers from serious maintenance problems.
The BBC quotes a U.S. state department spokeswoman to say that confidence-building measures would “pave the way for Iran to demonstrate that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.”
“This approach would also include step-by-step reciprocal steps aimed at near-term action on our part if Iran takes its own steps,” she added, without giving specific details.
The BBC also quotes analysts to say that the main goal of the six powers would be an Iranian agreement to shut down the higher-grade uranium enrichment program that it launched in 2010.
The New York Times reports that the six powers rejected Iranian calls for an immediate easing of the increasingly harsher economic sanctions that have been imposed on Iran. Senior Western diplomats also said that harsher American and European Union sanctions on oil exports and banking transactions to go into effect in July would not be postponed.
