Iran and the US: talking through gritted teeth

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/05/iran-us-nuclear-talks-editorial

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First, the good news. A date and a venue has been set for the next round of talks between the six nations negotiating with Tehran about its nuclear enrichment programme and Iran itself. Joe Biden, the US vice-president, and Ali Akbar Salehi, the Iranian foreign minister, have both said they are prepared to hold direct talks, although each clothed his offer in caveats. Mr Biden said the two countries could talk as long as Iran was serious, and Mr Salehi said the two sides should only engage "on an equal footing", which implies when sanctions are lifted. Still, Iranian public opinion has been softened up by a series of television debates about the utility of talking to the Great Satan.

The bad news is that all this has to happen in an increasingly long shadow cast by a presidential election in Iran in June, which – if the last two days are anything to go by – could be dramatic. The outgoing president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is not going quietly. Defying instructions by the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to lay off feuding publicly with the speaker of the Iranian parliament, Ali Larijani, a potential frontrunner in the forthcoming election, Mr Ahmadinejad accused the Larijanis of becoming "a family institution" at a hearing broadcast live on state radio.

In a speech meant to defend one of his ministers from impeachment (it failed), Mr Ahmadinejad played a recording of a meeting between Mr Larijani's brother Fazel and a former Iran prosecutor, Saeed Mortazavi, which implied that the former tried to use the family's prominence for financial gain. Both Larijani brothers, Fazel and Ali, have filed a legal complaint against Mr Ahmadinejad and Mr Mortazavi, and the former prosecutor was duly arrested the day after. Mr Khamenei has blocked parliamentary attempts to impeach Mr Ahmadinejad in the past. Faced with this very public defiance (the recording was put on the internet), he may not continue to shelter his former protege for much longer.

The supreme leader pulls all the strings of the nuclear talks, but the open war that has broken out between two wings of his ruling elite hardly fosters the atmosphere for bold moves in Kazakhstan, the venue of the next round. At any juncture a concession could be interpreted as an act of treason. To complicate matters further, a forthcoming report by the International Atomic Energy Agency may provide evidence of Iran's plan to speed up uranium enrichment. The installation of advanced centrifuges could lessen the time it needs to increase its stockpile of medium-enriched uranium .

The biggest obstacle, however, remains the sanctions themselves, the latest round of which bars Iran from repatriating the profits of its exported oil. Ensuring they are liftable, and can be sequenced to measures to unwind this crisis, will be a key part of the process.