On Wednesday, an upbeat head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),
Mohamad ElBaradei, reported that after two-and-a-half days of intense
negotiations in Vienna covering many technical issues, serious progress had
been made on a proposal to provide nuclear assistance for a small research
reactor in Tehran.
He added that the IAEA had presented the parties - Iran, Russia, the United
States and France - with a draft agreement that needed to be answered by the
end of this week.
Diplomats say the UN atomic watchdog's draft proposes that Russia process
Iranian low-enriched uranium to the 20% required by a research reactor in
Tehran and for France to turn it into fuel
form, Agence France-Presse reported.
Echoing ElBaradei's sentiment, Iran's envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh,
termed the talks "constructive and successful", although he was careful to
emphasize that, contrary to reports in some Western media, no final decision
had been made. At the time of writing, momentum appeared to be growing in
Tehran against any hasty decision.
"The deadline on Friday was not agreed at the meeting and was Mr ElBaradei's
own opinion," a Tehran source tells the author. The source added that in his
opinion, "Extra time is definitely needed, at least to avoid the impression
that Iran jumped into a fateful decision that weighs so heavy and needs to be
studied very carefully from all angles."
This view appears to be shared by a number of Iranian lawmakers, including
Mohammad Reza Bahonar, the deputy speaker of the Majlis (parliament), who said
the terms of the deal, under which Iran would ship its uranium abroad and
receive processed nuclear fuel in return, were "not acceptable".
There is also no consensus in Tehran regarding the relatively high volume of
Iran's low-enriched uranium (LEU) - 1,200 kilograms or equivalent to 80% of
Iran's LEU stockpile - targeted for outward shipment.
Given its past experiences with some international contracts, there is a great
deal of concern in Iran that no matter how firm the modalities of the latest
agreement on paper, when push comes to shove for actual delivery, there may be
footdragging. This is something the Tehran reactor, critical for the treatment
of cancer and other serious illnesses, cannot afford.
"Let's not forget that the last delivery of nuclear fuel for this reactor took
five years. The IAEA approved it in 1988, and yet it was not delivered to us
until 1993," said a Tehran University political science professor.
The five-megawatt thermal reactor has been running at about 60% of its full
capacity because of low fuel, which is expected to run out by late 2010 or
early 2011. There is therefore little time to waste on lengthy negotiations,
one reason why Iran has warned that unless a decision is reached soon, it will
continue to produce the fuel, which requires medium-enriched uranium of 19.75%.
This despite prohibitive costs and technical challenges.
"Iran should opt for a phased agreement, a stage-by-stage deal," said a Tehran
analyst, Rahmatollah Ghahramanpour. He also raises questions about France's
participation as a subcontractor for manufacturing uranium rods after Iran's
LEU is further refined by Russia. Another analyst, Hassan Beheshtipour,
considers the Vienna talks as a "test of goodwill", especially on the part of
the US and France.
It is also a test of political will, in light of the wealth of nay-sayers to
the proposed deal in Tehran, Washington and various European capitals.
"The quantitative disagreement, on the level of Iran's uranium mass to be
exported [for further enrichment] can be negotiated, but the qualitative
subject that is connected to the big picture cannot," the Tehran professor
cited above elaborates.
"Any agreement on the Tehran reactor will have a great deal of symbolic
significance because it alters the climate of hostility between Iran and the US
and this in turn makes it more difficult for opponents of Iran at the US
Congress to push for new sanctions."
In other words, this may leave the core issue, Iran's right to enrich uranium,
intact, At the same time, it defuses the "Iran threat" by removing the bulk of
the net nuclear product that Iran could conceivably further develop for
weaponization.
All the same, the quantitative issue may prove troublesome. The Tehran reactor
has sustained itself since 1993 through the delivery of about 116 kilograms of
Argentina's near-20% enriched uranium, roughly equivalent to 1,169 kilograms of
Iran's LEU.
At its optimum capacity, the reactor's annual need is about 18 kilograms of
enriched uranium, equivalent to 180 kilograms of LEU, so for a 10-year supply
for the reactor operating at the normal 70-80% of full capacity, it would
require the shipment of nearly all of Iran's 1,500 LEU. This is one of the
reasons why lawmakers such as Bahonar insist that foreign assistance to the
"purely humanitarian" reactor that makes medical isotopes should not hinge on
the use of Iran's LEU. After all, it has taken Iran several years to be able to
put together its present 1,500 kilograms of LEU.
Nevertheless, given that this idea was initially floated by Iran and termed by
President Mahmud Ahmadinejad as a "litmus test for the international
community", it is now relatively difficult for Tehran to backtrack. Also, Iran
would not want to lose the opportunity to improve its image by being less
"nuclear-weapon capable".
This is especially so, given the crisis with its nuclear-armed neighbor,
Pakistan, in the wake of the recent terrorist attacks in Iran. (See
Iran's nuclear talks also hit Asia Times Online, October 21, 2009.)
Commenting on the latest proposal, the Tehran professor points to an unpleasant
trade-off between Iran's security and civilian needs. "Talk about nuclear
ambiguity. This is a deal that fulfills some needs but in the same breath
creates new needs and both positively and negatively effects a number of other
considerations, definitely not a perfect scenario."
Perhaps ElBaradei was closer to the mark when he painted the draft agreement as
a huge confidence-building step toward "normalizing Iran's relations with the
international community". The "historic agreement" may be ElBaradei's last
hurrah, as he steps down at the end of next month following his second
four-year term. He said he was "crossing my fingers" over the draft, but it
could be that it will be left to his successor, Japan's Yukiya Amano, to see
the deal through.
As it happens, Amano's Japan recently signed a similar deal with Russia for
enriched uranium, not to overlook a similar US-Russia deal earlier this year.
This would indicate that an ordinary matter pertaining to a medical reactor
fully monitored by the IAEA should not be subjected to such great hype.
Yet ElBaradei may have undercut his own efforts by tying the Iran draft to "the
complete normalization" of Iran's relations with the outside world, and even
with the "defusion" of the Iran nuclear crisis. Delinking the two may be a
better approach.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New
Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) . For his Wikipedia entry,
click here. His
latest book,
Reading In Iran Foreign Policy After September 11 (BookSurge Publishing
, October 23, 2008) is now available.
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