To date, negotiators on both sides of the talks over Iran’s controversial nuclear program, which resume next week, have been remarkably discreet. Even at the political level, people have been unusually quiet. This is an excellent omen. In the past, too many opportunities have been nipped in the bud due to [...]]]>
To date, negotiators on both sides of the talks over Iran’s controversial nuclear program, which resume next week, have been remarkably discreet. Even at the political level, people have been unusually quiet. This is an excellent omen. In the past, too many opportunities have been nipped in the bud due to an excess of statements calibrated for domestic purposes (a special mention to Wendy Sherman, the chief US negotiator, for saying so little, amiably, in many background meetings with the press). The involvement of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in the negotiations has also been of inestimable value. The Agency offers unique expertise and notarizes regularly the way in which Iran complies with its commitments. It contributes therefore decisively to the smooth progression of the discussions.
Quite unexpectedly, Iran’s negotiators have been the driving force in this process. They have seized President Hassan Rouhani’s initiative to solve the conflict over Iran’s nuclear program and have kept it ever since, setting the targets as well as the tempo. Iran’s foreign minister and lead negotiator, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said on April 7 that the drafting of the final agreement between Iran and the P5+1 (the U.S., Britain, France, China, and Russia plus Germany) should start in May, and that all efforts should be taken to complete the negotiations by the official deadline of July. The Iranians seem set to resolve the conflict over their nuclear program as fast as possible, once and for all.
The Rouhani administration’s determination serves in pleasant contrast to the rather stiff and slow Iranian behavior that was especially exhibited during the Ahmadinejad era, but also, at times, in the most favorable of circumstances, during the 2003-05 period, when Rouhani was himself Iran’s chief negotiator. At that time, the Iranian diplomats on the frontline were subjected to a heavy-handed system of control, which tended to stifle their movements. Having learned from this experience, President Rouhani, elected last June, has obtained a carte blanche from Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. While the Leader did issue a set of red lines last month (English diagram), and has issued specific warnings every now and then, he has consistently supported Iran’s diplomats while keeping domestic criticism of Iran’s team at a manageable level.
Indeed, Rouhani may not own the horse, but he controls the reigns. One of his first acts as president was transferring Iran’s nuclear negotiating file from the Supreme National Security Council to the Ministry of Foreign affairs. That enabled him to build a “dream team” of seasoned negotiators, perfectly comfortable with the codes and practices of their Western counterparts. Iran’s new and refined team has stood out in stark contrast to the collective clumsiness of the P5+1 negotiators, as in the early November 2013 episode, when four Western Foreign Ministers rushed prematurely to Geneva, spurring the media to believe, mistakenly, that a deal would be signed (it was signed 10 days later). But, as Marshal Foch used to say: “After leading a coalition, I have much less admiration for Napoleon…”
Getting to the heart of the matter, many points seem close to being settled. Iran is ready to cap at 5% its production of enriched uranium and to limit its current stockpile from further enrichment. The controversial underground facility of Fordow will probably end up as a kind of research and development unit. The Arak reactor’s original configuration allowed the yearly production of about ten kilograms of plutonium, enough for one or two bombs. Ali Akbar Salehi, chairman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), has hinted that this configuration could be modified in order to accommodate low-enriched uranium fuel rather than natural uranium. This would reduce Arak’s plutonium production capacity by a factor of five to ten. And Iran has already confirmed that it has no intention of acquiring the fuel reprocessing capacity indispensable for isolating weapon-grade plutonium.
Depending on the pace of sanctions relief, Iran also seems ready to return to a kind of de facto implementation of the IAEA’s Additional Protocol, which would provide enhanced monitoring over all of Iran’s nuclear activities. Iran should be ready to initiate the Protocol’s ratification process as soon as the United Nations Security Council shows itself ready to remove the Iranian nuclear file from its agenda, thus erasing the burning humiliation of 2006, when it passed its first resolution on the subject.
The make or break issues
To date, five sticking points remain on the table.
The most difficult issue concerns the format of Iran’s enrichment capacity. The Joint Plan of Action (JPOA), adopted last November, speaks of “parameters consistent with practical needs, with agreed limits on scope and level of enrichment activities”. But the West has focused on “breakout time”, that is, the time needed to acquire enough highly enriched uranium for a first bomb if Iran decided to renege on its commitments. This delay has been estimated at about two months in the current state of Iran’s enrichment program. To extend it significantly, Iran would have to bring down the number of its centrifuges from the present 20,000 to 2-6,000.
A drastic reduction of the number of centrifuges, however, would be a deal-breaker for Iran. Following the conservative elements of the regime, the Supreme Leader has recently excluded any kind of bargaining on Iran’s nuclear achievements.
Fortunately, other solutions can alleviate the West’s concerns. First, having enough highly enriched uranium for one bomb does not mean having the bomb. Several more months would be necessary to make it ready. Second, one wonders why the international community would need more than one or two months to properly respond to an Iranian rush for a bomb. If it can’t make it in two months, why would it succeed in six? Third, this infamous breakout time could be extended without reducing the present number of centrifuges by using, as fast as possible, the low enriched uranium produced by Iran as fuel for nuclear reactors, rendering it unserviceable for further, weapon-grade, enrichment. Here, feeding the Arak reactor with domestic low-enriched uranium could solve a good part of the problem.
It is unfortunate, though, that the Iranians have made so little effort up to now to identify the “practical needs” mentioned, at their initiative, in the Geneva agreement. The spokesman of the AEOI has announced recently that a “comprehensive document” was being elaborated on the subject, and would be submitted for approval to the Iranian Parliament. But this process will probably extend beyond the time limit set for the negotiations.
In the meantime, we know that the Russians are bound to provide for eight more years the low enriched fuel necessary for the Bushehr nuclear plant. After this period, they will resist the introduction of Iranian fuel into the Bushehr reactor, as the selling of fuel is for the Russians the most profitable part of their contract with Iran. Their attitude will be the same when discussing the construction and operation of more reactors in Iran. By all means, new Russian reactors, or any reactors from other origins, will not be active before a decade. All of this is to say that if the current number of 20,000 centrifuges was accepted by the international community, the Iranians would have no “practical need” in the offing to justify a raise of this number in the years to come.
Another difficult point is the question of nuclear research and development. The West would like Iran to forsake such activities, especially in the field of centrifugation. Again, this is a red line for the Supreme Leader and the conservatives, as Iran’s engineers are working on models up to fifteen times more efficient than the present outdated model forming the bulk of its program. Here, a simple solution has been suggested by Salehi: instead of setting a cap on centrifuges, which could be circumvented by using more efficient models, the parties should define this cap in “separative work units”, the equivalent of horsepower in the field of enrichment. The introduction of more efficient centrifuges would thus reduce in due proportion the total number allowed.
A third difficult point is the ongoing exploration by the IAEA of the “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear program. This demand, reiterated by the IAEA Board of Governors and the UN Security Council, has been fiercely resisted by Iran. In fact, it was the head of the US national intelligence community who said, in 2007, that the Iranian weaponization program was stopped before completion by the end of 2003. Ten years have since passed, and the people involved in that program must have been granted some kind of protection in exchange for their compliance, hence the inherent difficulty for the Iranians of authorizing outsiders to probe too deep into this subject. In former similar occurrences, such as with Egypt, South Korea and Taiwan, the IAEA has accepted not to divulge details on the wrongdoings discovered by its inspectors, once assured of the cancelation of these programs. A similar way out should be explored with Iran.
The fourth sticking point evolves around Iran’s ballistic missiles. The West wants to include them in the negotiations, as a source of worry identified by the UN Security Council, but this has been outright rejected by Iran. Recall that Iran has accepted to negotiate over its nuclear program as a civilian program placed under the aegis of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Negotiations over missiles pertain to a different world, the world of defense and disarmament, in which negotiations are by definition collective, save for unilateral measures imposed upon a defeated country. If there is a solution here, it would require a separate, multilateral discussion on the level and distribution of ballistic missiles in the Middle East, with the aim of convincing concerned states to join the International Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation, adopted in 2002 in the Hague.
The last point, little talked about, but hardly the least difficult, concerns the duration of the future comprehensive agreement to be signed by Iran and the P5+1. Under the Geneva JPOA, this agreement, once fully implemented for the duration of all its provisions, will be replaced by the common regime applicable to all NPT members. Iran would then be freed of specific commitments such as the limitation of its enrichment activities, on which extensive IAEA controls, of course, would remain. Such a shift would mean that the International community would be fully reassured about the peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program.
However, to reach such an assessment, the general behavior of the Iranian regime and the quality of its relations with the outside world would be as important as the state of its nuclear program. How long should the assessment process last? These considerations cannot be put into writing. The Iranians will probably insist on no more than five years, while the West would be happy to see this regime of special constraints indefinitely extended. This point could be the last outstanding issue in the discussions. Hopefully, if solutions are found on all the previous questions, there will be a strong incentive to find a compromise here to ensure a final deal once and for all.
Photo: EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at a joint press conference following talks between Iran and the P5+1 in Vienna, Austria on April 9, 2014. Credit: AFP/Samuel Kubani
]]>by Derek Davison
Iran and the P5+1 (the US, Britain, France, China and Russia plus Germany) are meeting for a third round of negotiations on April 8-9 in Vienna as part of an attempt to reach a final nuclear deal by their self-set July deadline. LobeLog has been
by Derek Davison
Iran and the P5+1 (the US, Britain, France, China and Russia plus Germany) are meeting for a third round of negotiations on April 8-9 in Vienna as part of an attempt to reach a final nuclear deal by their self-set July deadline. LobeLog has been charting these talks extensively, especially since the start of talks that led to the November 24, 2013 Joint Plan of Action, but for those who are just beginning to follow this issue or need a refresher, let’s examine some of the details around Iran’s nuclear program and the ongoing international efforts to reach an agreement over its future size and scope.
What are the current talks about?
At stake is the future of Iran’s nuclear program within international nonproliferation safeguards, and the easing or total removal of economic sanctions that have been levied against Iran by the United States, European Union and the United Nations.
Who are the main players?
You can’t spell “Iranian nuclear program” without “Iran,” so we should probably start with them. Iran’s negotiating team is led by Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who reports to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. The final say on foreign policy decisions rests with Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and both Rouhani and Zarif must ensure that any deal will be met with Khamenei’s approval.
The Iranians are negotiating with a coalition of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (the US, UK, France, Russia, China) and Germany, which is typically called the P5+1, but is sometimes also called the E3+3 (the three EU members plus the US, Russia, China). The P5+1’s point person for the talks is Catherine Ashton, the EU High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, but the foreign secretaries of the six nations will also have to sign-off on a final deal. The internal cohesion of the P5+1 has been crucial in maintaining sanctions against Iran, and will be tested given the tensions that now exist between Russia and the US/EU over Russia’s recent annexation of Crimea.
Other key players that are not directly involved in the talks include Israel, which claims it’s deeply concerned about the possibility of Iran developing nuclear weapons, and Saudi Arabia, which considers a sanctions-free Iran to be a potential rival for regional hegemony, and is worried about what it sees as a major shift in US foreign policy away from Saudi interests.
When did the talks start?
Iran has been negotiating on and off with the European Union (specifically the UK, France, and Germany) and on related but separate issues with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) since 2003 under then Presidents Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005) and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-13). In 2006, the talks were widened to include the US, Russia, and China, though the US refused to fully participate until Iran met certain pre-conditions like an indefinite halt to its uranium enrichment program.
The current round of talks began after Rouhani’s election as president in June 2013; he had run promising to increase the transparency of Iran’s nuclear program in order to convince the P5+1 to draw down its sanctions regime. Iran and the P5+1 met in Geneva in early November, and an interim agreement (with a term of 6 months plus the possibility of renewal), the Joint Plan of Action (JPA), was announced on November 24. Under the terms of the JPA, Iran agreed to substantially slow down its nuclear activity in exchange for partial sanctions relief, and a plan was made for future talks toward a long-term resolution. The JPA went into effect on January 20 of this year, and the first round of talks on a long-term deal between the principal negotiators took place in Vienna from February 18-20, with the second round taking place from March 17-20. See this timeline of diplomatic efforts related to Iran’s nuclear program for more details.
What are the key issues to be negotiated?
Brookings Institution arms control expert Robert Einhorn, who served as Special Advisor for Nonproliferation and Arms Control to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, recently issued a report outlining the remaining challenges in the talks, and highlighting the two biggest. First and most important is the level of uranium enrichment that Iran will be allowed to undertake. “Light water” nuclear reactors (which use water as coolant and to mediate the nuclear reaction) for civilian use need to be fueled with low enriched uranium (LEU), which is uranium that has been modified via centrifuge so that around 5% of its weight is made up of the more radioactive Uranium-235 isotope (less than 1% of naturally occurring uranium is U-235, the rest is the less radioactive U-238). Nuclear weapons require highly enriched uranium, where 85% or more of the uranium is U-235 (uranium enriched below 20% is considered LEU, anything above that is HEU). In order to reduce Iran’s ability to produce HEU, Einhorn says a deal must limit Iran to 2000-6000 centrifuges, which is far below the 10,000 it currently operates and even farther below the 19,000 Iran says it plans to operate once all its centrifuges are in place. The ideal solution from a non-proliferation standpoint would be for Iran to completely give up its enrichment program, but the Iranians have been consistent in saying that they will not do so under any circumstances, and the US has conceded that Iran will continue to enrich uranium under a comprehensive deal.
The other major challenge is the status of a proposed “heavy water” reactor at Arak (around 150 miles southwest of Tehran), which uses deuterium oxide as coolant and mediator rather than water. Iran claims that it plans to use Arak to produce medical isotopes, but because heavy water reactors produce large amounts of plutonium (an alternative to HEU for weapons making) as byproduct, there are fears that Arak could be used to produce fuel for weapons (though Iran denies this and has pledged not to build the kind of facilities that would be necessary to reprocess that plutonium for weapons use). There are ways to modify Arak’s design to produce substantially less plutonium, and some kind of modification will likely be necessary in a final deal.
How did Iran come to have a nuclear program in the first place?
Iran began developing a nuclear program in the 1950s with American assistance, under President Dwight Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” program. This was an effort to head off the possibility of nuclear proliferation by offering American research, infrastructure, and expertise to countries that were interested in developing nuclear programs for peaceful use. Iran signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968, which obliges it not to pursue nuclear weapons. After Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, an American ally, was removed from power by the 1979 Islamic Revolution, all cooperation between Iran and the United States on nuclear power was halted. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who became Iran’s new leader after the revolution, showed little interest in the nuclear program, but it did continue. Today, Iran’s primary nuclear facilities include a civilian power plant at Bushehr, four medical reactors at Isfahan, a research reactor at Tehran, and uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow. See this timeline of the Iranian nuclear program for additional details.
So the Iranians are trying to develop nuclear weapons, right?
Well, not so fast. In the 1970s, American intelligence agencies believed that the Shah was interested in developing nuclear weapons, but the revolution interrupted those plans and limited Iran’s access to foreign expertise and material. Iran restarted its nuclear program with the help of a Pakistani scientist named Abdul Qadeer Khan, who sold uranium enrichment technology to several countries in the late 1980s. The consensus of the American intelligence community seems to be that Iran stopped any direct nuclear weapons program in 2003. Since then, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei (Khomeini’s successor) has issued a religious declaration (fatwa) saying that the manufacture and use of nuclear weapons is forbidden under Islam. The former chief of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, has also repeatedly said there is “no credible evidence” that Iran has resumed pursuing nuclear weapons and the US intelligence community continues to rule that while Iran is moving towards developing a nuclear weapons capability, it has not yet decided to do so, which is why diplomacy, which can impact Iran’s decision-making process, is so important.
I notice that you didn’t just say “no” there.
Okay, you got me there. Former director ElBaradei’s statements notwithstanding, the IAEA has also consistently said that it does not have enough evidence to rule out the possibility that Iran has been pursuing a weapon. Additionally, while Ayatollah Khamenei has repeatedly denied that Iran seeks a nuclear weapon, he has also said that, should it choose to pursue one, “no power could stop us.” Ultimately, though, what the P5+1 are worried about is Iran’s “breakout capacity,” which is the time it would take Iran to build a weapon if it decided to pursue one. Elements of a final deal that put limits on Iran’s ability to enrich uranium and permit intrusive inspections of Iranian nuclear sites would ideally leave Iran with a breakout capacity of at least 6 months, preferably closer to 12.
What are the chances that the talks will succeed?
Any of the remaining obstacles to a comprehensive deal could prove insurmountable, particularly over the issue of how much uranium enrichment Iran will carry out. Khamenei and US President Barack Obama have both previously expressed pessimistic sentiments about the potential for success. However, both Iranian and American officials have recently sounded more optimistic.
Why are the talks important?
A negotiated settlement that allows Iran a limited enrichment capacity with significant inspections and verification requirements is, as Einhorn writes, “not ideal, but better than the alternatives.” If these talks fail, there will be a push for tougher sanctions on Iran, but it is unclear how much more pressure sanctions can bring to bear, and it is even less clear that the P5+1 will hold together to implement tougher sanctions. If harsher sanctions don’t, or can’t, work then limited military action against Iran’s nuclear sites could follow, though experts have explained why that’s the least favorable option. Such an act would end all possibility of negotiations and likely push the Iranians to kick nuclear inspectors out of the country and race toward building a weapon. Even if limited strikes could temporarily slow Iran’s progress toward a weapon in the event that it actually chose to make one, they cannot eliminate the related technical knowledge and expertise that Iran has developed.
These talks will also have longer term implications, particularly in terms of setting a precedent for future such agreements and in terms of Iran’s ability to incorporate itself into the wider international community.
*This post was revised on April 10 to correct presidential terms.
Representatives of Iran and the P5+1 are photographed at the signing ceremony of the Joint Plan of Action, the interim nuclear agreement that was reached in Geneva, Switzerland on November 24, 2013. Credit: Credit: ISNA/Mona Hoobehfekr
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