With the European Union’s chief diplomat helping lead the way, a stubborn Iranian government has agreed to international inspections of a mysterious nuclear facility and said it would continue talks about its nuclear program with six world powers. Javier Solana, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said Iran had reiterated its willingness to open its recently revealed nuclear site to international inspectors, giving an upbeat assessment of the world powers’ talks with Iran in Geneva.
However, Solana said there was “not a complete response” from Iran about the six powers’ offer of refraining from new sanctions, in return for Iran not expanding its enrichment program, which many countries fear could be used for making a nuclear weapon. The United States and Israel are especially fearful Iran is making an atomic bomb to join the world nuclear club.
The next round of talks would take place before the end of October, said Solana, who formally represented the United Nations Security Council veto powers and Germany at the talks. The Spanish EU diplomat said it was important that the United States had participated fully in such talks for the first time, as US President Barack Obama said he would try talking to Iran about its nuclear program, but only up a point, if Tehran dug its heels in again, as it has been doing for several years. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad backed off his always tough talk in which he had vowed never to yield to western powers demands to inspect Iran’s nuclear sites, even as he insisted the nuclear program was for peaceful energy-producing purposes. On October 18, a meeting is scheduled in Vienna, the seat of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to discuss the six country’s proposal for making fuel for a research reactor in Tehran.
The announcements came alongside a direct meeting - the first of its kind in 30 years - between United States Under Secretary of State William Burns and his Iranian counterpart Saeed Jalili. After 14 months of stalled talks, the session in Geneva was seen as a first step towards further negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme, which has been raised as a major international security concern by the five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany. “We had a good day of talks with the Iranian delegation,” Solana said, adding he hoped for an “intensive process” in the future. Iran agreed to cooperate “fully and immediately” with the UN nuclear monitoring body - the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Solana said. Speaking in Washington, Obama called the talks “constructive” but cautioned Tehran must take concrete steps to assure the world that its nuclear activities were peaceful and that US patience was “not unlimited.” Solana said the full participation of the US was critical to the discussions, allowing all the powers to take forward their concerns directly to Iran. For the Iranians, a “framework” for future discussions with Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany still needs to be hammered out. IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei will visit Tehran to start the process of arranging for UN inspectors to reach the sites in Iran in two weeks, according to Western officials, though Jalili would not be drawn into outlining a timeline.
“I said that regarding all activities we have in nuclear issues, all of these are in coordination with the agency,” Jalili said after the talks, adding that “every state and country has the right to peaceful nuclear energy.” The six nations are concerned that some of Iran’s programs, if further developed, could be used to create nuclear weapons. Western powers have threatened more sanctions against the Islamic republic if it does not stop uranium enrichment.
“If Iran does not take steps in the near future to live up to its obligations then the United States will not continue to negotiate indefinitely and we are prepared to move toward increased pressure,” Obama said. At the talks in Geneva, Iran agreed to consider sending low enriched uranium to foreign countries for further enrichment so that it could be put to medical use after it was re-imported.
A US official, who noted that Iran had enough low grade uranium to make a bomb should the material be highly enriched, said the amount under discussion to be sent abroad would be “most” of Tehran’s stockpile, according to Deutsche-Presse-Agentur (dpa.) The details of shipping the uranium to Russia and then France would be negotiated on October 18 in Vienna, where the IAEA is based.
US officials said Iran still had to take more “concrete, practical, confidence-building steps,” but that “Iran engaged on its program today,” in reference to the nuclear project. However, the Western powers still want Iran to “come clean” on the entirety of its program, including research documents. After initial signs that the Iranian chief nuclear negotiator would refuse to speak about his country’s specific programs, the conclusion, though vague, was taken by the nuclear powers as a sign of some progress. “No one expected one day would resolve everything,” a US official said.
Further sanctions against Iran, Western diplomats said, were left mostly off the agenda, as they awaited the results of anticipated inspections and the next round of talks set for the end of the month. The US has said it does not oppose Iran having peaceful nuclear capacities, but remained concerned that Tehran was not being forthcoming about its full ambitions, particularly after an undisclosed nuclear site was revealed recently.
An earlier test-firing of missiles by Iran met international criticism, with the United States saying they fit into Tehran’s pattern of provocation. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the tests were part of the “provocative nature with which Iran has acted on the world stage for a number of years.” Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, meeting his Iranian counterpart Manucher Mottaki on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, expressed Moscow’s deep concern over the tests and urged Tehran to cooperate “to the largest extent possible” with the IAEA.