The Iranian government suggested Tuesday that it would seek changes in the package of incentives offered on behalf of world powers by European Union Foreign Minister Javier Solana, but comments made by both sides also show that, for now, diplomacy has replaced confrontation over Iran’s nuclear aspirations.
Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, and Solana, who was accompanied by the political directors for England, France, Germany and Russia, said they would be talking again in the coming days.
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“We had constructive talks,” Larijani said. Solana “delivered certain proposals that they had been working on. These proposals contain a number of positive steps, and there are also ambiguities that have to be cleared up.”
“I hope after we’ve had a chance to consider the proposals, we could have more talks so that we can reach a balanced and logical outcome,” Larijani added.
Speaking to reporters in Laredo, Texas, President Bush described Iran’s reaction as “positive.”
“We will see if the Iranians take our offer seriously,” Bush continued. “The choice is theirs to make.”
A range of incentives
The world powers are demanding that Iran halt its uranium enrichment-related work in return for economic goodies and more intangible support such as backing from the West for Iran’s bid to join the World Trade Organization.
Key to the entire offer however, is the United States’ commitment, announced last week, to join the Europeans, Russia and China in talks with Iran if the Islamic Republic suspends uranium enrichment-related activities. Many of the economic offers, some of which the European Union also made nearly a year ago, cannot be delivered without U.S. backing because of legal and treaty requirements.
Among them is a guarantee that the United States would facilitate a European offer to provide Iran with a light water reactor and other civilian nuclear technology. Much of the light water nuclear technology originates in the United States, and without American government approval, the Europeans could not provide it to Iran. The decision to offer Iran help with a nuclear reactor is bound to be especially controversial because it is possible to harvest spent plutonium from such a plant and use it to manufacture material for an atomic bomb, according to scientists.
“Spent fuel from a light water reactor is harder to process” for use in a bomb, said David Albright, a former United Nations weapons inspector. “But nothing is proliferation proof.”
Debate: Bombs or power?
Western powers are convinced Iran’s nuclear program is aimed at achieving the capability to make bombs. Tehran insists it wants nuclear technology only for civilian purposes.
The United States and the other countries have also committed to help Iran obtain new agricultural technology and to help Iran’s “civil aviation” sector, said foreign diplomats. The U.S. currently refuses to sell anything to Iran, and the nation’s aging fleet has suffered several fatal crashes and Tehran’s air authority routinely is forced to cannibalize parts from one plane to keep another running. Because the U.S. owns the licenses to a number of parts, its endorsement is needed for the sale both of parts and planes manufactured in other countries, such as Airbus, which is manufactured in France. Technical assistance could also be part of the package, diplomats said.
A full list of incentives has yet to be unveiled, and vaguer still are the penalties to which Iran might be subject if it does not accept the deal. It is not clear whether Russia and China, which have resisted economic sanctions, have changed their opposition to them.
Diplomats in Europe and people close to the Iranian government said they expected Iran to fight the demand that in order to obtain the incentives, it halt altogether its centrifuge operation and stop conversion of uranium yellow cake into uranium gas. Uranium in its gaseous form is what is fed into the centrifuges for enrichment which, when highly enriched, can be used in a bomb.
“It’s unlikely they are going to give on that,” said a European diplomat in Vienna, noting that the last time Iran halted its centrifuge operation, a number of the delicate machines broke.