It is expected that the six world powers negotiating group (the P5+1) will once again meet this month at various diplomatic levels with Iranian representatives to resolve fears that Iran could decide to divert its civilian nuclear program toward military use. Little has been agreed upon in past sessions and optimism [...]]]> via Lobe Log

It is expected that the six world powers negotiating group (the P5+1) will once again meet this month at various diplomatic levels with Iranian representatives to resolve fears that Iran could decide to divert its civilian nuclear program toward military use. Little has been agreed upon in past sessions and optimism for the next meeting is modest. The allied group’s most recent position has called for the ending of 20 percent uranium enrichment; the shipment abroad of 20 percent enriched uranium; the closure of Fordow, an underground enrichment center near Qom; and a halt to lower-grade enrichment. Iran has insisted that it has the right to enrich uranium under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) for peaceful purposes and, in effect, that its concerns about sanctions must be addressed.

American press and government attention to Iran’s extensive nuclear program is concentrated on its potential diversion of nuclear material toward military purposes. Often ignored in public discussions about Iran’s nuclear ambitions is that its interest in nuclear power and related medicinal use spans over 40 years. In the 1980s, the Shah developed the thesis that petroleum should be used for dozens of potential products and not wasted on power production. At that time, he set a target of 20,000 megawatts (mg) of power by ten nuclear reactors to be designed and erected by engineering firms from the US, France and Germany. The Germans were the only country that got to the actual construction phase of Iran’s first power reactor in the city of Bushehr. The US and Iran had to reach agreement on a new treaty on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy before contracts could be signed and the long negotiations were held up by the Shah’s insistence that the treaty provide for Iran’s right to the entire nuclear process from enrichment to reprocessing. A compromise was reached and the agreement was initialed in the summer of 1978, but the revolution intervened before it could be submitted to the Senate for ratification.

In the 1977-78 period, the Shah also instructed his staff to calculate what resources, human and other, would be needed if at some point Iran decided to have a military nuclear program. The entire program was then set aside early in the revolutionary period by the Iranian government and Western governments withdrew their interests in cooperation, including Germany.

During the late 1980s or early 1990s, Iran’s new Islamic government directly or indirectly drew upon plans laid down by the monarchy and assessed its future power needs. Like the monarchy it had worked to overthrow, Iran’s current government opted for 20,000 mg of nuclear origin to be completed in the third decade of 2000. In this period, the Rafsanjani and Khatami governments, like the Shah before them, also apparently authorized research and experimentation for possible military uses. It is these activities that continue to concern the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Western governments even though Iran has steadily denied engaging in nuclear activities that are geared toward military purposes. The American intelligence community has officially concluded that in fact, Iran halted suspicious actions in 2003 and no other state has asserted that it has convincing evidence to the contrary.

Now, more than 40 years after the first expression of interest in nuclear power, Iran has in operation only Bushehr, a 1,000 mg pressurized water reactor, that the Russians took over from the canceled German contract. Power reactors require the enrichment of large amounts of uranium ore to a level of 3.5% to 5%, or Low-enriched Uranium (LEU), and further separative work to a form appropriate for reactor fuel. Reactors like Bushehr require roughly 26 tonnes of LEU as yearly fuel and several times that for total start-up requirements. As part of the construction contract, the Russians have provided a total of 85 tonnes of LEU and have to maintain control of the irradiated fuel. Bushehr has the capacity to supply 2% of the country’s electricity needs.

Iranian authorities expect to complete the Arak heavy water plant in 2013-2014. The reactor will create 40 mg of power and 10-12 kilos of plutonium per year. Officials in Tehran have claimed that the plutonium will be used for research and medicinal isotopes. Outside observers are particularly concerned that at some point in the future the plutonium could be used to build at least two nuclear explosives yearly if the plutonium is separated form the fuel. North Korea, Israel, India, and Pakistan used plutonium for their nuclear bombs. As yet, however, Iran does not have the capability to separate the plutonium into explosive usable form.

The IAEA presently has inspection rights to over 20 facilities dedicated to various aspects of Iran’s extensive nuclear program including two enrichment facilities (Natanz and Fordow), a plant that separates uranium from ore in Isfahan, the research reactor in Tehran, and a number of research and development centers.

Iran announced last year that it hoped to sign contracts this year for construction of the Bushehr Two reactor and possibly one south of the city of Awaz at Darkhovin. The Bushehr Two reactor was at one time to be constructed by the French and planned to be a second heavy water type to produce 330 mg of power.

Iran has 5,303 kg of enriched uranium in storage — perhaps one fifth of the yearly fuel requirement for Bushehr, let alone its start-up needs. The uranium mines in Iran are not of high quality and at present importation, like the 450 tonnes from South Africa several decades ago, will be subject to UN and international sanctions. The head of Iran’s nuclear matters has expressed the ambition to have 48,000 centrifuges at Natanz, which, at full operational capacity, could provide the yearly fuel requirements for one reactor. Iran’s centrifuge plant as yet can not produce that number but could over time and will move to more efficiently designed centrifuges. The enrichment capabilities at Fordow could supplement Natanz. The Iranians created considerable controversy last year when over 200 kgs of uranium were enriched at Fordow to 20 percent allegedly to fuel the Tehran research reactor. Twenty percent enriched uranium can be increased to over 90 percent bomb level much more quickly than from low enrichment. A sizable portion of the uranium had also been put in a form for Tehran’s reactor.

Looking ahead, Iran has made considerable advances in its nuclear program and will continue its unyielding position that under the NPT it has every right to a civilian program that includes reactor fuel enrichment. The program, at least in the past decade, has had all the attributes of legitimate civilian uses. However, the future course will be even more difficult now than in the past. Iran has persevered successfully in developing a solid base despite the assassination of its nuclear scientists and the Stuxnet cyber attack against the computers that direct several programs. But economic sanctions will make the importing of reactor requirements, including dual-use items, nearly impossible. Continuing threats of cyber warfare and aerial bombings will also continue to hang over Iran’s planners.

The concern of the US, Israel and others is that Iran’s leaders, despite their insistence that all Iran’s actions are permitted under the NPT, could decide to “break out” and achieve weaponization within a brief period. If such a decision was made, it could take the track of highly enriched uranium ore, and, once Arak is working, by plutonium. However, any efforts in this direction would certainly be known soon after they were made and the US and Israel would have sufficient time to decide about military action or adopting a policy of containment. Iran’s nuclear activities in no way pose a current threat to the region or to the United States.

Photo: Roundtable view of nuclear talks held in Moscow, Russia (June 18-19). Courtesy of European External Action Service Flickr.

By Richard Javad Heydarian

A key foreign policy consequence of President Barak Obama’s reelection is the growing possibility of face-to-face talks between the United States. and Iran. Both the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi have expressed, albeit conditionally, their respective governments’ openness [...]]]> via Lobe Log

By Richard Javad Heydarian

A key foreign policy consequence of President Barak Obama’s reelection is the growing possibility of face-to-face talks between the United States. and Iran. Both the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi have expressed, albeit conditionally, their respective governments’ openness to engage in comprehensive bilateral talks — for the first time in almost three decades — to primarily resolve the ongoing nuclear standoff.

Beyond the issue of urgently resolving the Iranian nuclear question, purportedly to prevent an Israeli pre-emptive strike and an Iranian nuclear bomb, the Obama administration’s growing interest in directly engaging Iran may have something to do with timing, opportunity, and leverage.

There is a feeling in Washington that the recent transatlantic sanctions may have created enough pressure  — and damage to Iran’s economy — to potentially extract major unilateral concessions from the Iranian regime. Namely, a “stop-shut-ship scenario”, whereby Iran would curb its enrichment capacity, open up all aspects of its nuclear program, shut down its heavily-fortified nuclear facilities, and ship out its stockpile of above 3-5 percent enriched uranium in exchange for some nominal — yet to be clarified — incentives from the West.

Since the imposition of Western sanctions against Iran, beginning in late-2011 and intensifying by mid-2012, the Iranian economy has begun whimpering on an unprecedented scale. Iran’s oil output is at its lowest in more than two decades, while oil exports have been halved; the inflation rate has surpassed the 25 percent barrier, while the budget-deficit is reaching its highest level in the last decade; and, the Iranian currency (rial) has lost about 80 percent of its value in less than a year. The sanctions against Iran’s ports, shipping industry, financial sectors, and central bank, Bank-e-Markazi, have also made it increasingly difficult to conduct even the most benign kind of international transactions, from the import of medicines, to food, diapers and medical equipments.

However, there are some recent indications that Iran’s economy is not exactly in a desperate shape, or at least not as frail and fragile as the Obama administrations hopes it to be.

According to the Paris-based International Energy Agency’s (IEA) most recent report, Iran’s oil exports have rebounded sharply – by around 30 percent – after seven months of steady decline, thanks to new contracts with giant Asian customers, China and South Korea. With oil exports constituting more than three-quarters of export earnings, Tehran is now in a relatively better position to defend its falling currency. In fact, the rial has indeed experienced some recovery in recent weeks, appreciating from the record-low of 37,000 rials against 1 dollar in early October to around 27,000 rials against 1 dollar today. Of course, the most recent financial and hydrocarbon sanctions by the European Union will further complicate the process by which Iran intends to translate its rising exports into a stronger local currency.

Another surprising development is in the tourism sector, which has also experienced an unexpected spike. “Although most sectors of Iran’s economy are struggling and oil revenue has steeply declined, foreign purchasing power is at an all-time high in Iran due to a plunge in the value of the Iranian currency, the rial,” reported Jason Rezaian of the Washington Post.

The Iranian government has circumvented transatlantic sanctions by an ingenious mixture of manifold countermeasures. It has negotiated sovereign insurance deals with major customers such as China, India, Japan, and South Korea, while considering barter deals (sweetened by heavy discounts and flexible payment arrangements) to woo major customers and continue large-scale oil trade. Iran has also expanded its tanker storage capacity by purchasing/building new oil-transporting vessels, smuggled oil through neighboring countries like Iraq, and stealthily transported oil — with off-the-radar and/or or ‘foreign flagged’ ships — from its ports to major destinations in East Asia. This explains Iran’s ability to increase oil exports by almost 30 percent in November, compared to previous months.

Moreover, the government has instituted some draconian measures to stave-off the impact of sanctions. It has further slashed imports, postponed its subsidy cuts, reduced money supply, raised interest rates, and jailed so-called ‘currency manipulators’. It has also encouraged domestic manufacturing. Aside from the government’s recent ban on imports of around 77 luxury products, atop reductions in 52 other non-essential goods, the fall of the Iranian currency  — especially in the black market – has also eroded the competitiveness of imported capital goods, which have hammered local producers in recent years.

It’s important to note that the Iranian government has considerable foreign exchange reserves, estimated at between $80-100 billion, giving it significant ability to sustain imports for an extended period and defend its currency amid growing international restrictions. With a multi-tiered foreign exchange system, the government has an ability to cushion the most vulnerable sectors — incidentally, the backbone of the regime – against major disruptions in the import of basic commodities. After all, Iran’s structurally high inflation more the product of a loose monetary policy and major subsidy cuts that begun in 2010.

In some ways, it is Iran’s relative resilience  — and ability to avoid a total collapse — that may explain its willingness to explore direct talks with Washington. Tehran feels that it has enough wiggle room to avoid total unilateral concessions and negotiate a more mutually-favorable, face-saving outcome — perhaps, before it’s tool late.

- Richard Javad Heydarian is a Philippine-based foreign affairs analyst, specializing on international security and economics. He can be reached at jrheydarian@gmail.com

The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) has released a brief report emphasizing that Iran continues to move toward nuclear weapons capability and the international community must halt further progress. ISIS’s latest concern centers around Iranian lawmaker Mansour Haqiqatpour’s October 2 comment that Iran could enrich uranium to 60 percent [...]]]> via Lobe Log

The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) has released a brief report emphasizing that Iran continues to move toward nuclear weapons capability and the international community must halt further progress. ISIS’s latest concern centers around Iranian lawmaker Mansour Haqiqatpour’s October 2 comment that Iran could enrich uranium to 60 percent if diplomatic talks fail. From Reuters:

“In case our talks with the (six powers) fail to pay off, Iranian youth will master (the technology for) enrichment up to 60 percent to fuel submarines and ocean-going ships,” Haqiqatpour said.

The powers should know that “if these talks continue into next year, Iran cannot guarantee it would keep its enrichment limited to 20 percent. This enrichment is likely to increase to 40 or 50 percent,” he said.

The US and international community should prepare for an official Iranian announcement of such high-grade enrichment, warns ISIS, adding that Iran has “no need to produce highly enriched uranium at all, even if it wanted nuclear fuel for a reactor powering nuclear submarines or other naval vessels, or for a research reactor”. The move would also “significantly shortens Iran’s dash time to reaching weapon grade uranium,” the report said.

ISIS’s conclusion:

Taken in this context, any official Iranian announcement to make highly enriched uranium should be seen as unacceptable. Many will view such a decision as equivalent to initiating a breakout to acquire nuclear  weapons, reducing any chance for negotiations to work and potentially increasing the chances for military  strikes and war. Before Iran announces official plans to make highly enriched uranium, the United States and  the other members of the P5+1 should quietly but clearly state to Iran what it risks by producing highly  enriched uranium under any pretext.

No details are provided as to what exactly needs to be done to make Iran understand that such a move would be “unacceptable”, but we are informed that Iranian enrichment of high-grade uranium would increase the chances for military conflict.

The fact that Iran is still years aways from being able to test a device, and according to US and international official assessments has still not made the decision to do so, is also absent from ISIS’s report. Indeed, according to the bipartisan Iran Project report on the benefits and costs of military action on Iran (emphasis mine):

After deciding to “dash” for a bomb, Iran would need from one to four months to produce enough weapons-grade  uranium for a single nuclear device. Additional time—up to two years, according  to conservative estimates—would be required for Iran to build a nuclear warhead  that would be reliably deliverable by a missile. Given extensive monitoring and  surveillance of Iranian activities, signs of an Iranian decision to build a nuclear  weapon would likely be detected, and the U.S. would have at least a month to  implement a course of action.

It’s not easy for a European observer of US politics to understand why the US Congress seems so much more concerned by Iran’s nuclear activities than by those of North Korea (the DPRK). Congressional pressure on the White House to put a stop to Iranian activities seems never-ending and Congressional majorities [...]]]> via Lobe Log

It’s not easy for a European observer of US politics to understand why the US Congress seems so much more concerned by Iran’s nuclear activities than by those of North Korea (the DPRK). Congressional pressure on the White House to put a stop to Iranian activities seems never-ending and Congressional majorities for anti-Iranian resolutions are staggering. In comparison, when did Congress last pass a resolution requiring the administration to take action against the DPRK?

On the face of it, this makes little sense. To a European, North Korea looks to be a greater and more actual threat to US interests than Iran.

North Korea is sitting atop enough plutonium for perhaps a dozen nuclear weapons. Two underground nuclear tests have shown that the North Koreans are able to put together nuclear devices, though experts surmise that these are still somewhat rudimentary.

North Korea has also acquired the capacity to enrich uranium. Western experts have seen a relatively small enrichment plant at the main DPRK nuclear research centre. There has been speculation that there exists a larger plant deep within the mountains in the North of the country.

Iran has no plutonium. Iran possesses enough low-enriched uranium for half a dozen nuclear weapons but has so far shown no sign of wanting to enrich this material to the 90% level required for weapons. The Iranians are not suspected of having conducted nuclear tests; they may not be capable of assembling a workable nuclear explosive device.

North Korea expelled the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at the end of 2002, and has only allowed them back in for a brief period since. Over the last ten years no state has received as many IAEA inspections as Iran, whose two enrichment plants were declared to the IAEA before they started to operate.

North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in early 2003, having failed to correct the nuclear safeguards non-compliance declared by the IAEA in 1993. Iran corrected its pre-2004 safeguards failures within two years of their discovery; it expressed regret over these transgressions; and ever since it has affirmed the fullest of commitments to the NPT, to which it became a party fifteen years before the DPRK.

North Korea’s nuclear weapons are viewed as a threat by two of the US’s most valuable allies: Japan and South Korea (the ROK). These two allies are crucial to the US’s defence of its strategic interests in the Western Pacific. In the event of hostilities between the US and China (heaven forefend!) Japan would offer the US vital staging facilities, akin to those the US would have enjoyed in the UK if the US needed to go to war on the European mainland.

US strategic interests in South West Asia are on the wane. The US is now self-sufficient in natural gas and imports less than 12% of the crude oil it consumes from the Gulf; it could quite easily switch to African and American suppliers if Saudi and Iraqi supplies were threatened. Over the last decade the risk of Iraqi transfers of WMDs to Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda acquisition of safe havens in the Middle East has been eliminated (albeit at a price!).

Since the end of the Cold War, over twenty years ago, no single power has been capable of challenging US influence in South West Asia, whereas China is increasingly seen in the US as an emerging challenger to the US in East Asia.

When it comes to making belligerent noises, Iran’s leaders can’t hold a candle to those of North Korea. And the average alienist would surely find it easier to treat the former than the latter.

In 2011 US merchandise exports to the Far East were worth $286 billion and imports $718 billion. Comparable figures for South West Asia, including Turkey and Israel, were $71 billion and $108 billion. Far Eastern investors supply the US with a far larger percentage of external credit than do Middle Eastern investors. Far Eastern corporations are major employers and tax-payers in the United States.

All of these very basic facts must be familiar to Congressional staffers, if not to members of Congress. So how can one explain the disproportionate attention that Congress pays to Iran’s nuclear activities?

I have a theory. But I think it would be more appropriate for me to leave readers to come up with their own answers. I suspect that most will be honest enough to admit to themselves that they have a pretty shrewd idea as well.

After being asked to give his take on a recent report about the human costs of attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, a prominent commentator on US-Iran relations said it was an “inexact science” and declined further comment even though he called the project a worthy endeavor. While the idea that inflicting [...]]]> via Lobe Log

After being asked to give his take on a recent report about the human costs of attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, a prominent commentator on US-Iran relations said it was an “inexact science” and declined further comment even though he called the project a worthy endeavor. While the idea that inflicting physical damage on a nuclear site would cause serious harm to surrounding biological entities seems indisputable, at least the after-effects of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq tragically continues to serve as a case study for the impact a prolonged war with Iran — required if the goal is to set back Iran’s nuclear program by more than a few years — would have on the human population. According to a new study first reported on by the Independent, there has been a significant rise in Iraqi birth defects in cities that were hard-hit by US-led forces during the war:

The latest study found that in Fallujah, more than half of all babies surveyed were born with a birth defect between 2007 and 2010. Before the siege, this figure was more like one in 10. Prior to the turn of the millennium, fewer than 2 per cent of babies were born with a defect. More than 45 per cent of all pregnancies surveyed ended in miscarriage in the two years after 2004, up from only 10 per cent before the bombing. Between 2007 and 2010, one in six of all pregnancies ended in miscarriage.

The new research, which looked at the health histories of 56 families in Fallujah, also examined births in Basra, in southern Iraq, attacked by British forces in 2003. Researchers found more than 20 babies out of 1,000 were born with defects in Al Basrah Maternity Hospital in 2003, a number that is 17 times higher than recorded a decade previously. In the past seven years, the number of malformed babies born increased by more than 60 per cent; 37 out of every 1,000 are now born with defects.

The US response:

A US Defense Department spokesperson said: “We are not aware of any official reports indicating an increase in birth defects in Al Basrah or Fallujah that may be related to exposure to the metals contained in munitions used by the US or coalition partners. We always take very seriously public health concerns about any population now living in a combat theatre. Unexploded ordnance, including improvised explosive devises, are a recognised hazard.”

But a series of studies have suggested links between the bombardments and a rise in Iraqi birth defects:

Their preliminary findings, in 2010, prompted a World Health Organisation inquiry into the prevalence of birth defects in the area. The WHO’s report, out next month, is widely expected to show an increase in birth defects after the conflict. It has looked at nine “high-risk” areas in Iraq, including Fallujah and Basra. Where high prevalence is found, the WHO is expected to call for additional studies to pinpoint precise causes.

The Iranian rial has been in free fall for the last few days. Inflation has been ramping up for the last few months as the rial has lost more than 50 percent of its value over the last year. Unemployment is up to maybe 25 percent plus, and quite a [...]]]> via Lobe Log

The Iranian rial has been in free fall for the last few days. Inflation has been ramping up for the last few months as the rial has lost more than 50 percent of its value over the last year. Unemployment is up to maybe 25 percent plus, and quite a bit higher in some of the poorer parts of the country.

Iran’s oil exports have been slammed by sanctions. Even with Iran’s attempts to sneak some out in various ways, such as registering tankers in Mongolia of all places; the sanctions hunters found out about that one fairly quickly and shut it down with some diplomatic moves in Ulan Baator.

Then there is the purchase of 2 million barrels of stranded oil in Sid Krir in Egypt that the Egyptian government wants to purchase. US-Egyptian relations are not exactly the best these days and President Morsi visited Tehran recently. He might have embarrassed his host by mentioning his views on Syria, but he still went. Egypt also looks like it might be working towards improving relations with Iran. Turkey may be buying some oil from Iran with gold or other barter methods. Other states may be setting grain and goods for oil barter arrangements.

The financial system of Iran has been hit hard with the sanctions. The closing down of Iran’s access to the SWIFT system was significant. This may have done more damage to Iran’s ability to do business internationally than many of the other sanctions combined. The sanctions focused on persons and banks are good politics, but have historically not been that effective. Closing the country from a major clearing house is like slamming a large financial door in their faces.

Indeed, Iran is in a tight spot. I would expect runs on banks to follow on to this if the government cannot stem the flow of the psychology of financial contagion that seems to be sweeping the country. The government is clearly in a panic. They are blaming the usual “outside forces” and “22 conspirators” who of course were arrested quite publicly today. Then they blamed the black market money changers in the bazaars of Tehran for the collapse. This last one makes less than no sense. The bazaaris do not exchange enough money to make this sort of a dent in the US dollar-Iranian rial exchange rate. The currency drop has a lot more to do with hyper-expansive monetary policy pushing inflation. There is clearly a sense that there are way too many rials chasing at a faster velocity the goods that are in stock and are flowing into Iran. See this article for some supporting monetary and other data.

The huge rise in the stock market of Tehran is also due to nominal reasons, as we economists would like to say in such circumstances. The money flowing into the economy via the policies of the Central Bank of Iran has pumped up not only the prices of goods, but also stocks. This huge increase in money supply has also pumped up the price of land and housing in Iran. Also driving the stock, land and housing costs is the shortage of alternative investments. Sanctions have taken a bit out of the Iranian economy on that account.

Iran’s economic policies have actually magnified, not countered, the effects of the sanctions. One of the major culprits was expanding the broad money supply by 100 percent in the last 5 years.

This said, what is happening now shows not only the results of sanctions but counterproductive economic policies and more. The current economic status of Iran also shows how the credibility of the regime is weakening.

I am certain that there are many people in Iran who are questioning the worth of the country’s nuclear program and especially the leadership’s global defiance on this issue in light of the growing resulting problems they’re facing.

Developing about 90 percent of the entire nuclear fuel cycle is very expensive. This could have been costing Iran about 10 percent or more of its GDP for many years. That is 10 percent that could have been invested in industries that produce jobs, agriculture, education, and more.

Expansive nuclear infrastructure development is not necessary given the existence of global trade in low enriched uranium for nuclear plants. It is also unnecessary given the small amount of raw uranium that exists in Iran. This is also counter-intuitive given that Iran flares off the equivalent of four nuclear power plants of 1200 MW each of natural gas.

There are many reasons why Iran’s government should focus on its economy and its people, rather than on defiant nuclear brinksmanship.

The Iranian leadership may find that their brinkmanship is about to bring their country to the brink.

via IPS News

Iran has again offered to halt its enrichment of uranium to 20 percent, which the United States has identified as its highest priority in the nuclear talks, in return for easing sanctions against Iran, according to Iran’s permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Ali Asghar [...]]]> By Gareth Porter

via IPS News

Iran has again offered to halt its enrichment of uranium to 20 percent, which the United States has identified as its highest priority in the nuclear talks, in return for easing sanctions against Iran, according to Iran’s permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, who has conducted Iran’s negotiations with the IAEA in Tehran and Vienna, revealed in an interview with IPS that Iran had made the offer at the meeting between EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton and Iran’s leading nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili in Istanbul Sep. 19.

Soltanieh also revealed in the interview that IAEA officials had agreed last month to an Iranian demand that it be provided documents on the alleged Iranian activities related to nuclear weapons which Iran is being asked to explain, but that the concession had then been withdrawn.

“We are prepared to suspend enrichment to 20 percent, provided we find a reciprocal step compatible with it,” Soltanieh said, adding, “We said this in Istanbul.”

Soltanieh is the first Iranian official to go on record as saying Iran has proposed a deal that would end its 20-percent enrichment entirely, although it had been reported previously.

“If we do that,” Soltanieh said, “there shouldn’t be sanctions.”

Iran’s position in the two rounds of negotiations with the P5+1 – China, France, Germany, Russia, Britain, the United States and Germany – earlier this year was reported to have been that a significant easing of sanctions must be part of the bargain.

The United States and its allies in the P5+1 ruled out such a deal in the two rounds of negotiations in Istanbul and in Baghdad in May and June, demanding that Iran not only halt its enrichment to 20 percent but ship its entire stockpile of uranium enriched to that level out of the country and close down the Fordow enrichment facility entirely.

Even if Iran agreed to those far-reaching concessions the P5+1 nations offered no relief from sanctions.

Soltanieh repeated the past Iranian rejection of any deal involving the closure of Fordow.

“It’s impossible if they expect us to close Fordow,” Soltanieh said.

The U.S. justification for the demand for the closure of Fordow has been that it has been used for enriching uranium to the 20-percent level, which makes it much easier for Iran to continue enrichment to weapons grade levels.

But Soltanieh pointed to the conversion of half the stockpile to fuel plates for the Tehran Research Reactor, which was documented in the Aug. 30 IAEA report.

“The most important thing in the (IAEA) report,” Soltanieh said, was “a great percentage of 20-percent enriched uranium already converted to powder for the Tehran Research Reactor.”

That conversion to powder for fuel plates makes the uranium unavailable for reconversion to a form that could be enriched to weapons grade level.

Soltanieh suggested that the Iranian demonstration of the technical capability for such conversion, which apparently took the United States and other P5+1 governments by surprise, has rendered irrelevant the P5+1 demand to ship the entire stockpile of 20-percent enriched uranium out of the country.

“This capacity shows that we don’t need fuel from other countries,” said Soltanieh.

Iran began enriching uranium to 20 percent in 2010 after the United States made a virtually non-negotiable offer in 2009 to provide fuel plates for the Tehran Research Reactor in return for Iran’s shipping three-fourths of its low-enriched uranium stockpile out of the country and waiting for two years for the fuel plates.

The P5+1 demand for closure of the Fordow enrichment plant was also apparently based on the premise the facility was built exclusively for 20-percent enrichment. But Iran has officially informed the IAEA that it is for both enrichment to 20 percent and enrichment to 3.5 percent.

The 1,444 centrifuges installed at Fordow between March and August – but not connected to pipes, according to the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security – could be used for either 20-percent enrichment or 3.5-percent enrichment, giving Iran additional leverage in future negotiations.

Soltanieh revealed that two senior IAEA officials had accepted a key Iranian demand in the most recent negotiating session last month on a “structured agreement” on Iranian cooperation on allegations of “possible military dimensions” of its nuclear programme – only to withdraw the concession at the end of the meeting.

The issue was Iran’s insistence on being given all the documents on which the IAEA bases the allegations of Iranian research related to nuclear weapons which Iran is expected to explain to the IAEA’s satisfaction.

The Feb. 20 negotiating text shows that the IAEA sought to evade any requirement for sharing any such documents by qualifying the commitment with the phrase “where appropriate”.

At the most recent meeting on Aug. 24, however, the IAEA negotiators, Deputy Director General for Safeguards Herman Nackaerts and Assistant Director General for Policy Rafael Grossi, agreed for the first time to a commitment to “deliver the documents related to activities claimed to have been conducted by Iran”, according to Soltanieh.

At the end of the meeting, however, Nackaerts and Grossi “put this language in brackets”, thus leaving it unresolved, Soltanieh said.

Former IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei recalls in his 2011 memoirs that he had “constantly pressed the source of the information” on alleged Iranian nuclear weapons research – meaning the United States – “to allow us to share copies with Iran”. He writes that he asked how he could “accuse a person without revealing the accusations against him?”

ElBaradei also says Israel gave the IAEA a whole new set of documents in late summer 2009 “purportedly showing that Iran had continued with nuclear weapons studies until at least 2007″.

Soltanieh confirmed that the other unresolved issue is whether the IAEA investigation will be open-ended or not.

The Feb. 20 negotiating text showed that Iran demanded a discrete list of topics to which the IAEA inquiry would be limited and a requirement that each topic would be considered “concluded” once Iran had answered the questions and delivered the information requested.

But the IAEA insisted on being able to “return” to topics that had been “discussed earlier”, according to the February negotiating text.

That position remains unchanged, according to Soltanieh. The Iranian ambassador quoted an IAEA negotiator as asking, “What if next month we receive something else — some additional information?’”.

“If the IAEA had its way,” Soltanieh said, “It would be another 10 or 20 years.”

Soltanieh told IPS a meeting between Iran and the IAEA set for mid-October had been agreed before the IAEA Board of Governors earlier this month with Nackaerts and Grossi.

The Iranian ambassador said the IAEA officials had promised him that Director General Yukia Amano would announce the meeting during the Board meeting, but Amano made no such announcement.

Instead, after a meeting with Fereydoun Abbasi, Iran’s Vice President and head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Amano only referred to the “readiness of Agency negotiators to meet with Iran in the near future.”

“He didn’t keep the promise,” said Soltanieh, adding that Iran would have to “study in the capital” how to respond.

Soltanieh elaborated on Abassi’s suggestion last week that the sabotage of power to the Fordow facility the night before an IAEA request for a snap inspection of the facility showed the agency could be infiltrated by “terrorists and saboteurs”.

“The objection we have is that the DG isn’t protecting confidential information,” said Soltanieh. “When they have information on how many centrifuges are working and how many are not working (in IAEA reports), this is a very serious concern.”

Iran has complained for years about information gathered by IAEA inspectors, including data on personnel in the Iranian nuclear programme, being made available to U.S., Israeli and European intelligence agencies.

*Gareth Porter, an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy, received the UK-based Gellhorn Prize for journalism for 2011 for articles on the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

When two or more aficionados of the Iranian nuclear controversy are gathered together, the conversation will turn at some point to whether opportunities for resolving the issue peacefully have been missed.

Some see a missed opportunity in the first George W. Bush administration’s refusal to countenance an Iranian negotiating proposal transmitted [...]]]> via Lobe Log

When two or more aficionados of the Iranian nuclear controversy are gathered together, the conversation will turn at some point to whether opportunities for resolving the issue peacefully have been missed.

Some see a missed opportunity in the first George W. Bush administration’s refusal to countenance an Iranian negotiating proposal transmitted by Switzerland in May 2003. Others lament the inability of France, Germany and the United Kingdom to accept the limited resumption of uranium enrichment in Iran, in 2005, in return for a range of confidence-building measures and safeguards against the diversion of nuclear material to military purposes.

I regret that it occurred to no one in the autumn of 2003 to link Iran’s voluntary suspension of work on the development of an enrichment capacity to completion of International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) verification under the Additional Protocol, a voluntary but advanced nuclear safeguards standard introduced in the mid-1990s.

On 16 October 2003, the then Director General of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, flew to Tehran to discuss with the secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, the contours of a deal with the foreign ministers of France, Germany and the UK. The proposal, in essence, was that if Iran suspended its nuclear fuel cycle activities, allowed IAEA inspectors the access and cooperation envisaged in the Additional Protocol, and entered into talks with the three European powers (the E3) about the future of its nuclear programme, the E3 would ensure that the IAEA board of governors refrained both from declaring that Iran had been in non-compliance with its safeguards obligations and from reporting that non-compliance to the United Nations Security Council, where the Bush administration was waiting to pounce like a tiger on its prey.

The flaw in the agreement with the E3, as discovered five days later, was the absence of timelines. The Iranians were reluctant to commit themselves to suspension for a particular length of time, because they were hoping to resume the development of an enrichment capacity as soon as the risk of a referral to the Security Council had passed. The E3 were reluctant to press Iran to make such a commitment because they wanted Iran’s suspension to last indefinitely. And the IAEA, if asked, would have declined to say how many years would be needed to complete Additional Protocol verification, because they were conscious of many uncertainties.

Yet had Dr. ElBaradei tried and succeeded in persuading a vulnerable Iran to maintain its voluntary suspension until the completion of Additional Protocol verification, the risk of another war in the Gulf, which the world faces today, would be far less acute.

At the conclusion of an Additional Protocol investigation the IAEA secretariat reports to the board of governors that it is in a position to provide a credible assurance about “the absence of undeclared nuclear activities or material” in the country in question. Had these words been pronounced in relation to Iran at any time since 2003, even the most hawkish of Western adversaries would have found it hard to argue that Iran’s nuclear activities posed a threat to international peace and had to be curtailed. Instead, Iran renounced suspension after two years; the E3 retaliated by engineering a non-compliance report to the Security Council; Iran counter-retaliated by ceasing to allow the IAEA to undertake Additional Protocol verification; the IAEA secretariat has had no option since but to report that it is not in a position to provide Protocol non-proliferation assurances; an alleged proliferation threat has been used to justify a steady multiplication of sanctions; and demands for an (unlawful) act of aggression to destroy Iran’s nuclear plants have grown ever more frequent.

All this begs two questions: why did Iran cease applying the Additional Protocol in 2006 and why have they not voluntarily reapplied it since? Nothing forced Iran to reduce cooperation with the IAEA to the legal minimum in 2006. They could have resumed enrichment work but continued to grant Protocol access. And since 2006 they could have wrong-footed their adversaries by reapplying the Protocol and winning the best guarantee the IAEA can give: “no undeclared nuclear activities or material”.

I don’t know the answers. It’s a puzzle. Is this simply a case of reluctance to lose face by reversing an unwise decision? Are the Iranians worried that granting Protocol access would enable the IAEA to discover undeclared activities and/or material, aggravating Iran’s Security Council predicament? Has Iran lost all confidence in the impartiality and professionalism of the IAEA secretariat, which was accused last year of taking instructions from Iran’s Western adversaries?

One thing, however, is certain: if Iran wants to put an end to repeated Western calls for it to prove that its nuclear programme is exclusively peaceful, reapplying the Additional Protocol is the solution. The one and only proof of a peaceful programme that the non-proliferation community cannot contest are the assurances that can result from the IAEA’s Protocol investigations: “no undeclared nuclear activities or material”. Those words are the key to demonstrating to the world that there is no nuclear proliferation justification for sanctioning Iran or threatening her with devastation.