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Iran and Six Nations Agree to Continue Nuclear Talks Iran and Six Nations Agree to Continue Nuclear Talks
(about 3 hours later)
ALMATY, Kazakhstan — Talks between Iran and six world powers over its nuclear program ended on Wednesday with an agreement to convene technical experts in Istanbul on March 18 and return to Almaty for full negotiations among the delegations on April 5 and 6, a senior Western diplomat said. ALMATY, Kazakhstan – Two days of talks between six world powers and Iran over its nuclear program ended on Wednesday with specific agreement for further meetings in March and April over a proposal that would sharply constrain Iran’s stockpile of the most dangerous enriched uranium in return for a modest lifting of some sanctions.
Iran’s chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili, said that modest progress had been achieved. The participants “had come back with more realistic proposals that come a little closer to Iran’s position,” he said. “Their proposals seem more realistic and positive.” He added that there have been “some changes in their viewpoint.” But the six powers dropped their demand that Iran shut down its enrichment plant at Fordo, built deep into a mountain, instead insisting the Iran suspend enrichment work there and agree to unspecified conditions that would make it hard to quickly resume enrichment there. The six also agreed, in another apparent softening, that Iran could produce and keep a small amount of 20 percent enriched uranium for use in a reactor to produce medical isotopes.
The two days of talks here had been convened to to get a clear response from Tehran to an offer of step-by-step sanctions relief in return for confidence-building measures from Iran, Western diplomats said. The two sides agreed that technical experts would meet to discuss the proposal on March 18 and 19 in Istanbul, while the negotiations at this higher political level will resume, again in Almaty, on April 5 and 6.
The six powers want Iran, as a first step, to stop enriching uranium to 20 percent and to export its stockpile of that more highly enriched uranium, which can be more quickly turned into bomb-grade material. The six also want Iran to shut down its Fordo enrichment facility, built deep into a mountain, which Iran has steadily refused to do. In return, the six — the five permanent members of the Security Council, plus Germany — have offered Iran further sanctions relief, reportedly including permission to resume its gold and precious metals trade as well as some international banking activity and petroleum trade. The chief Iranian negotiator, Saeed Jalili, called this meeting positive, asserting that the six powers, representing the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany, had offered a revised proposal that was “more realistic” and “closer to the Iranian position.” Mr. Jalili, whose press conference was notably short of the aggressive rhetoric he has used in the past, called the meeting “a turning point.”
On Wednesday, a senior American official called the talks “useful” rather than positive or negative and said, “What matters are concrete results on the most urgent issues,  on 20 percent enrichment and on Fordo.” But senior Western diplomats were less enthusiastic, saying that Iran had not in fact responded to the proposal of the six and that real bargaining had not yet begun. A senior American official described the meeting as “useful” — refusing to call it positive — and emphasized that it was “concrete results” that count, not atmospherics.
Western diplomats cautioned that there was little substantive progress other than Iran’s willingness to study the proposals delivered here and added that the technical meeting in Istanbul is to explain the proposals in detail before returning to Almaty to hear Iran’s response. Diplomats have said that this week’s meeting would be a low-level success if it produced a specific agreement to meet again soon so that there would be an element of momentum to the negotiations. The talks have been intermittent since beginning in October 2009, with the last meeting eight months ago in Moscow. A senior European diplomat was even more skeptical than the American official, saying that the technical meeting was essentially to explain the proposal to the Iranians once again, and that Iran may very well come back in April with an unacceptable counterproposal that swallows the “carrots” of the six and demands more.
The ultimate goal of talks with Iran is to get the country to comply with Security Council resolutions demanding that it stop enrichment altogether until it can satisfy the International Atomic Energy Agency that it has no weapons program and no hidden enrichment sites. In return, all sanctions — which have so far cost Iran 8 percent of its gross domestic product, sharply increased inflation and collapsed the value of the Iranian currency, the rial — would be lifted. The senior American official said that as a first step toward confidence-building and reducing the urgency around the issue, the six were demanding that Iran “significantly restrict” its accumulation of uranium enriched to 20 percent – which can quickly be turned into bomb-grade materiel – and limit its production to what is needed for fuel for the small Tehran Research Reactor to make medical isotopes.
No one expected that kind of breakthrough in this round, especially with Iranian presidential elections coming in June and any major concession likely to be perceived as weakness. But the hope was for an incremental movement toward Iranian compliance in return for a modest lifting of sanctions. Iran must also “suspend enrichment at Fordo,” a plant deep inside a mountain and very difficult to attack from the air, and accept conditions that “constrain the ability to quickly resume enrichment there,” the official said. Third, Iran must allow more regular and thorough access to monitoring from the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure that it keeps its promises and cannot suddenly “break out” quickly to create a nuclear warhead, so that there is “early warning of any attempt to rapidly or secretly abandon agreed limits and prodece weapons-grade uranium,” the official said.
The six nations talking with Iran have remained united and share an impatience over what they perceive to be its delaying tactics. The Russian envoy, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who has been most opposed to increasing sanctions, said Tuesday that time was running out for the talks. He told the Interfax news agency that easing sanctions would be possible only if Iran could assure the world that its nuclear program was for exclusively peaceful purposes. In return, the official said, the six would suspend some sanctions, but not those involving oil or financial transactions, which are the harshest, and would promise not to vote new sanctions through the United Nations Security Council or the European Union.
“There is no certainty that the Iranian nuclear program lacks a military dimension, although there is also no evidence that there is a military dimension,” he said. “What matters are concrete results on the most urgent issues, on 20 percent enrichment and on Fordo,” the official said, which are “the most destabilizing and urgent elements of Iran’s nuclear program.”
He said Moscow hoped the talks would now move into a phase of “bargaining,” rather than just offering proposals. “There needs to be a political will to move into that phase,” Mr. Ryabkov said. “We call on all participants not to lose any more time.” The proposal is a slightly softer modification of the proposal the six made eight months ago in Moscow. There it was described as “stop, shut, ship” – demanding that Iran stop enrichment of uranium to 20 percent purity, shut the Fordo facility and ship abroad its stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium to be turned into nuclear fuel.
Tuesday’s talks began at 1:30 p.m. with a plenary session that lasted about 2 hours, 30 minutes, largely taken up with the six laying out their latest modified proposal to the Iranians. The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, is the chairwoman and speaks for the six. There was also discussion of the proposal by the Iranians and some questions asked, the diplomats said. The new offer demands the suspension of enrichment to 20 percent, the suspension of work at Fordo with unspecified conditions to make it difficult to renew enrichment there, and the ability of Iran to produce and keep a small amount of 20 percent enriched uranium for medical isotopes.
There were a few brief bilateral meetings with the Iranian delegation by the Russians, British and Germans, diplomats said, but not with the French or the Americans. The one and only bilateral meeting between the Americans and the Iranians in the course of the talks was in October 2009 in Geneva, although the chief American negotiator now, Wendy R. Sherman, the under secretary for political affairs in the State Department, has repeatedly said that she is open to another such meeting. The official denied that there was any “softening of our position,” citing further constraints on Iran, but conceded that Iran was being offered some more sanctions relief in response to its concerns and in an effort “to gain traction for these talks.”
If the American position was an effort to show the toughness of the offer, Mr. Jalili was at pains to sound both conciliatory and triumphant.
With presidential elections scheduled for June in Iran and visible political infighting there, Mr. Jalili’s news conference was a study in politics, Iranian style, with Mr. Jalili insisting that the six had moved toward Iran because of the “failure” of economic sanctions.
Mr. Jalili insisted that Iran would never close Fordo, which was under I.A.E.A. safeguards, and was only producing 20 percent enriched uranium “to meet our needs” for the isotopes. “It is important to us to have the 20 percent,” he said.
Western experts say that Iran has far more of that uranium than it needs, and has refused in the past to export its enriched uranium in return for fuel rods. But Mr. Jalili indicated that Iran was prepared to discuss limits. "This can be discussed in the negotiations,” he said, “in view of confidence building.”
Noticeably missing at his press conference were the posters of Iranian atomic scientists who have been assassinated in Tehran, and he only spoke of Syria and Israel in response to questions.
The willingness of Iran to agree so quickly to a new set of meetings and venues was also a marked change, indicating some sense of urgency and also of a political need to show Iranians that progress was being made to reduce the pain of sanctions. The sanctions have cut 8 percent from Iran’s gross domestic product, produced high inflation and chopped the value of the Iranian currency, the rial, by half.
But Western officials said the tough sanctions regime was working to put pressure on the government to negotiate. “There is a cost to Iran and its people every day they don’t solve this problem,” one senior Western official said. “And that cost will go up.”
The European Union foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, who chaired the talks on behalf of the six, was also cautious. "I hope the Iranian side is looking positively on the proposal we put forward," she said. "We have to see what happens next." If Mr. Jalili’s comments seemed positive, Ms. Ashton said: “I’m pleased, but I believe in looking at what the results are.”
The plenary meeting Wednesday morning lasted only about 90 minutes, in which Mr. Jalili made a presentation, trying to link the proposal of the six to a previous Iranian one. But there was quick agreement on moving forward.
Diplomats had said that this week’s meeting would be a low-level success if it produced a specific agreement to meet again soon so that there would be an element of momentum to the negotiations. The talks have been intermittent since beginning in October 2009, when the United States had its only bilateral meeting with Iran.
The ultimate goal of talks with Iran is to get the country to comply with Security Council resolutions demanding that it stop enrichment altogether until it can satisfy the International Atomic Energy Agency that it has no weapons program and no hidden enrichment sites. In return, all sanctions would be lifted.
Both Mr. Jalili and negotiators from the six powers agreed that there was a long way to go. The six, said Mr. Jalili, “tried to bring proximity in some points between the viewpoints of Iran and their own, which we believe is a positive step, despite the fact that we have a long way to go to reach the optimum point."