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Skepticism Abounds as Six World Powers Resume Nuclear Talks With Iran
Skepticism Abounds as Six World Powers Resume Nuclear Talks With Iran
(about 7 hours later)
ALMATY, Kazakhstan — Talks between Iran and six world powers over its nuclear program resumed here on Tuesday after a break of eight months, but there was a general atmosphere of gloom about their prospects for success, even if narrowly defined.
ALMATY, Kazakhstan — Talks between Iran and six world powers over its nuclear program will go into a second day here, with Western diplomats waiting to get a clear response from Tehran to an offer of step-by-step sanctions relief in return for confidence building measures from Iran, Western diplomats said Tuesday.
The first plenary session ended after about two and a half hours with no indication of when the negotiators would resume their discussions.
The six powers want Iran, as a first step, to stop enriching uranium to 20 percent and to export its stockpile of that more highly-enriched uranium, which is more quickly turned into bomb-grade material. The six also want Iran to shut down its Fordo enrichment facility, built deep into a mountain, which Iran has steadily refused to do so. In return, the six — the five permanent members of the Security Council, plus Germany — have offered Iran some further sanctions relief, reportedly including permission to resume its gold and precious metals trade as well as some international banking activity and petroleum trade.
Since talks in Moscow last June, Iran has continued to increase its stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 percent purity, has begun to install a new generation of centrifuges and has not yet completed an agreement on inspection of suspect military sites with the International Atomic Energy Agency, a deal originally advertised as all but done last May.
The ultimate goal of talks with Iran is to get the country to come into compliance with Security Council resolutions demanding that it stop enrichment all together until it can satisfy the International Atomic Energy Agency that it has no weapons program and no hidden enrichment sites. In return, all sanctions — which have so far cost Iran 8 percent of its G.D.P., sharply increased inflation and collapsed the value of the Iranian currency, the rial — would be lifted.
With presidential elections in Iran scheduled for June, senior Western diplomats involved with these talks expressed skepticism that Tehran’s chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili, would be willing to make compromises that could be portrayed as weakness at home.
No one expects that kind of breakthrough in this round, especially with Iranian presidential elections coming in June and any major concession likely to be perceived as weakness. But the hope is for an incremental movement toward Iranian compliance in return for a modest lifting of sanctions.
Mr. Jalili is the personal representative of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, considered the dominant voice on the nuclear issue. Ayatollah Khamenei has recently expressed continued mistrust of the United States and its intentions, saying that he would not allow the kind of bilateral talks between Washington and Tehran that most analysts think would be crucial to any resolution.
Tuesday night around 10 p.m. a senior Western official said, “We had a useful meeting today, discussions took place this evening, we are meeting again tomorrow.” Another official said that the Wednesday meeting would begin at 11:00 a.m.
At the same time, Iran has taken some of its stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium and converted it into reactor fuel, which cannot easily be turned back. The conversion means that Iran now has less of the uranium needed to make a bomb, reducing the sense of urgency among the six powers, and Israel, that its nuclear program needs to be slowed.
Senior Western diplomats have said that this meeting would be a low-level success if it produces a specific agreement to meet again soon, or to meet more often at the technical level, so that there is an element of momentum to the negotiations. They have been intermittent since beginning in October 2009, with the last one eight months ago in Moscow.
But the total Iranian stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium has nonetheless grown since November to 167 kilograms from 135 kilograms, according to the most recent I.A.E.A. report — closer to, if still significantly below, the 240 kilograms or 250 kilograms many experts consider necessary, once enriched further, to produce a nuclear weapon.
The six nations talking with Iran have remained united and share an impatience over what they perceive to be its delaying tactics. The Russian envoy, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who has been most opposed to increasing sanctions, said that time was running out for the talks. He told the Interfax news agency that easing sanctions would be possible only if Iran could assure the world that its nuclear program was for exclusively peaceful purposes.
Iran denies that its nuclear program has any military aim. The six world powers, the “P5-plus-1” group, which are the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — and Germany, want Iran to obey Security Council resolutions ordering it to suspend enrichment and open itself up fully to I.A.E.A. inspectors, to ensure that there is no effort to build a nuclear weapon.
"There is no certainty that the Iranian nuclear program lacks a military dimension, although there is also no evidence that there is a military dimension," he said.
To press Iran to comply, the Security Council, the United States and the European Union have created an increasingly painful set of economic sanctions on Iran, as part of a dual-track strategy — negotiations and sanctions. Iran has insisted that as a precondition for serious negotiations, the world should lift all the sanctions and recognize Iran’s “right to enrich,” which Iran asserts it has as a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
He said Moscow hoped the talks would now move into a phase of "bargaining," rather than just offering proposals. “There needs to be a political will to move into that phase,” Mr. Ryabkov said. “We call on all participants not to lose any more time.”
The negotiations have been tedious, with Iran appearing to be playing for time, diplomats say. The six powers had asked for a resumption of talks as early as December, but Iran rejected dates and sites before finally suggesting Almaty.
Tuesday’s talks began at 1:30 p.m. local time with a plenary session that lasted about 2 hours, 30 minutes, largely taken up with the six laying out their latest modified proposal to the Iranians. The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, is the chairwoman and speaks for the six. There was also discussion of the proposal by the Iranians and some questions asked, the diplomats said.
The choice pleased Western diplomats for its symbolic value, since Kazakhstan, when it became independent of the Soviet Union, freely relinquished the nuclear weapons it had inherited from Moscow. American officials are holding up Kazakhstan, one of the world’s largest producers of uranium and a maker of nuclear fuel, as an example to Iran of the benefits of peaceful nuclear energy and compliance with the I.A.E.A.
The rest of the afternoon and evening were taken up with waiting for an Iranian response, a senior European diplomat said. “Optimistic people are saying that there is modest progress, but realistic people like myself want to wait and see what the Iranians will come back with tomorrow, which can often be a surprise.”
President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan appealed to Tehran in a New York Times Op-Ed article in March 2012 to abandon what he suggested was its pursuit of nuclear power status. “Kazakhstan’s experience shows that nations can reap huge benefits from turning their backs on nuclear weapons,” he wrote.
There were a few brief bilateral meetings with the Iranian delegation by the Russians, British and Germans, diplomats said, but not with the French or the Americans. The one and only bilateral meeting between the Americans and the Iranians in the course of the talks was in October 2009 in Geneva, although the chief American negotiator now, Wendy R. Sherman, the under secretary for political affairs in the State Department, has repeatedly said that she is open to another such meeting.
While expectations are low, the six hope to leave here with some momentum and signs of Iranian willingness to engage in what all have agreed should be a reciprocal and step-by-step process of lifting sanctions in return for Iranian actions to comply.
“The onus is very much on the Iranians,” said Michael Mann, a spokesman for Ms. Ashton. He said at Wednesday’s plenary, “we hope to get a more detailed response” from the Iranians to the offer of the six.
“Iran needs to understand that there is an urgent need to make concrete and tangible progress” in these talks, said Michael Mann, the spokesman for Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign policy chief and chairwoman of the P5-plus-1 group.
Mr. Mann said that the six powers had together “prepared a good and updated offer for the talks which we believe is balanced and a fair basis for constructive talks” and “responsive to Iranian ideas.”
He and other Western diplomats refused to detail the offer before it was presented to the Iranians, but one senior diplomat called the offer “substantial and serious” and said recent news reports that suggested only some loosening in sanctions regarding gold sales “do not reflect the full offer.” The diplomat said the offer was “not a big bang deal, more an agreement on a package of confidence-building measures.”
“Our main concern is the enrichment over 5 percent,” which brings uranium closer to becoming bomb-grade, he said. “Iran has a great deal to gain by engaging,” the diplomat said. “Once the international community has the assurances it needs, sanctions will start to be lifted.”
Another Western diplomat said that the offer had been updated to account for the new enrichment Iran has done in the eight months since Moscow. There, the offer was described as “stop, shut, ship” — demanding that Iran stop enrichment of uranium to 20 percent purity; shut the Fordo underground enrichment facility, which is heavily protected deep inside a mountain; and ship abroad its stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium to be turned into nuclear fuel.
The six said in Moscow that they would reciprocate initially by lifting some sanctions, including on parts for American civilian aircraft that Iran has long sought, and provide fuel for an Iranian nuclear reactor.
The sanctions have hurt the Iranian economy, especially the sanctions on oil exports, which make up a large part of the economy. French officials say that Iran’s annual economic output has fallen by 8 percent because of the sanctions, inflation is very high — officially at 27.4 percent in 2012 but unofficially much higher — and the value of the Iranian currency, the rial, has dropped by about half over the past year.
Though Iranian officials insist that their economy is resilient, a senior American official said, “They’re beginning to feel the pressure of the sanctions.”
As for Iran’s presidential elections in June, the American official acknowledged that the vote “may constrain their political space,” but said that the nuclear negotiations had their own pace, which the six would like to accelerate. “We all understand that when it comes to the nuclear file, the key decisions are in the hands of the supreme leader,” the official said, referring to Ayatollah Khamenei. “And he is not going to change.”
