Iran, EU to continue nuclear talks

Iran, EU to continue nuclear talks
Mon, 04 Aug 2008 14:57:45

   

Iran's top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana have agreed to continue nuclear talks.

In a Monday telephone conversation, the two sides stressed that the path of the Geneva negotiations should continue in a positive and constructive atmosphere.   Jalili and Solana held talks in Geneva on July 19 on a package of incentives drawn up by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (G5+1).   The package requires Iran to suspend enrichment in return for political and economic benefits.   As a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran has ruled out the possibility of bringing its nuclear enrichment program to a halt, arguing that it has an inalienable right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes.   Iran believes giving in to Western demands that it renounce its nuclear rights would only lead world powers to further pressure the country and would eventually not lead to a change in the West's stance on Tehran.  SF/AA/BGH

With respect to Iran, the US-India nuclear agreement represents a timely diplomatic boon for Tehran, which can now point at the US's flexible application of its own nuclear policies as a reference point in Tehran's nuclear negotiations. Indeed, if the White House is determined to get this agreement passed by the US Congress by, among others, relying on the IAEA's role in inspecting India's facilities, why can't the same logic hold for Iran, which has been cooperative with the IAEA since 2003?

There are serious dissimilarities between India and Iran. For one thing, unlike India, which has 14 nuclear reactors and some nine more under construction, Iran has only one reactor, the one in Bushehr, which is now nine years behind schedule for its completion by Russian contractors.

Also, Iran is one of the original signatories of the NPT and has always formally abided by the NPT's articles, even though in practice it fell short at times, although the scope of its corrective steps in the past few years has brought Iran up to standards within the NPT regime. As a result, Iran has more of a legal case for seeking nuclear assistance from other countries, pursuant to the NPT articles, than India, which apparently is now interested in using its agreement with the US for de facto or de jure recognition as a NPT nuclear weapons state. There are important similarities between India and Iran, such as with respect to the nuclear fuel programs of the countries, cited above, that warrant a limited comparison by the US and the other participants of the "Iran Six" currently negotiating with Iran - Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany.

However, assuming that the US-India agreement proves only the first of its kind, thus setting into motion a new dynamic that will fuel nuclear proliferation in various parts of the world, including Asia and the Middle East, it is a safe bet that its net impact will be to strengthen Iran's latent nuclear proliferation tendency, by introducing new heat on it to play catch-up.