As Delivered:
Mark Fitzpatrick
Thank you very much, Pierre, for that forward-looking set of practical suggestions for dealing with a situation that, as you say, is grim but not yet decided. I know that you have a detailed set of suggestions in your paper that we will be putting on the website so that we can study these ideas of a Temporary Complimentary Protocol and Security Council forward-looking decisions in full. I now turn the floor over to my friend Maurizio Martellini
Maurizio Martellini
Thank you very much. First, I would like to take this unique opportunity to present a very long track two activity pursued by my institute since 2003 vis-à-vis Iran, intensified since last June. In my view, today’s crisis is, in some ways, even more difficult to overcome than the famous US-Soviet confrontation over Cuba. The reasons are different but, essentially, it is because of the absence of any diplomatic channels, so the parties are trapped in terms of diplomacy and trust. War is not, however, inevitable, even if it is very close.
My personal point of view – because this presentation does not at all represent that of my government – is that time is running out, so there is no time to pursue any comprehensive technological fix. Even as a theoretical nuclear physicist, I do not believe that the solution is a technicality. The solution might lie in politics with some element of technicality. There have been some positive spinoffs recently, in particular, the recently concluded talks, wherein Iran said that it had held constructive and positive talks with the IAEA.
What I wanted to present were some ideas concerning two phases, both quite short, with different perspectives and, in some sense, different agendas. The first phase is a key principle for negotiation. These are, of course, not new, and have been mentioned by many experts and scholars, but it is important to go through many declarations from the Iranian side – in particular from the Supreme Leader – to try to understand what the key benchmarks are and they are done before this exercise. In the second phase, I would like to suggest a preliminary nuclear-action plan. The purpose of such a plan is to create mutual respect and confidence. The brilliant presentation of my friend, the previous speaker, should be the future, but I think that now we need to establish some key points in order to cool the confrontation down. The main purpose of my vision after so many years is that, ultimately, the international community must create a path to allow the Islamic Republic of Iran to have a sustainable proliferation resistant and safe civilian nuclear energy.
What, then, are my general principles?
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First, do not attach preconditions or limit the scope of the agenda. This has often been the problem: the preconditions must follow the negotiation and cannot be put à priori.
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Secondly, which is easy to say but very difficult to implement, avoid language and actions of humiliation and demonisation. Many Iranian friends call this the Mossadegh Syndrome. It is about avoiding giving the perception that there is a continuous and clandestine approach to humiliate and demonise the Islamic Republic of Iran.
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Ultimately, the negotiation process cannot be restricted to nuclear issues. This is a really short-term vision. The negotiation process must focus on nuclear, because this is the priority, but thereafter the negotiation process must grant all regional actors in the Middle East economic development and assurances of security. So, thirdly, recognise that the nuclear talks must provide a comprehensive solution to the nuclear conundrum.
The next three principles are ones that I consider to be mandatory. Since I am a European, I prefer the term ‘E3+3’ to ‘P5+1’. I discussed the following points off the record with my Iranian counterpart:
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First, the E3+3 should be a political forum. The partners should set in general the framework, benchmarks and goals for the negotiations, but the IAEA should have an enhanced centrality in the nuclear field. Once the general framework, benchmarks and tasks have been selected by the E3+3, from my understanding of many past declarations by the Islamic Republic of Iran, the IAEA must be the only interlocutor on technical details. In other words, what I am suggesting is that, even if not formally, the Iranian nuclear file must be negotiated with the Agency once the E3+3 produce the framework for these technical negotiations.
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Secondly, as many speakers have said, confidence-building and transparency are mandatory; in other words, we need a paradigm shift in our approach. This paradigm shift is needed in terms of the question of whether Iran can be allowed to enrich: how can Iranian enrichment be inspected, verified and voluntarily constrained by Tehran in order to restore full international confidence in the peaceful nature of its nuclear programme? Any negotiation must produce some light at the end of the tunnel and not only constraints. The time that we have before a catastrophic military confrontation is about a few months, in my view, so there is no time to allow for full and comprehensive negotiations. I am suggesting two main stages: one short period of negotiation – in the past called pre-negotiations – of a few months, before spring; and the negotiation must not be conducted in public. Forget the mass media. Progress must be made through continuous IAEA inspection, and all communication must be channelled through the Agency. The reason for this is obvious. Sometimes the disclosure of the evolution of compromises destroys the environment, because each part has its own agenda. The two main pillars of my thinking in such a short time is, firstly, to give the IAEA a clear mandate to find the technicality to resolve this confrontation and to provide some sort of interim nuclear solution for the key problem; in the mean time, the E3+3 must develop some vision concerning how to address the other dimensions. The second key element of my proposal is to try to do this in a discreet and non-public way.
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The final element of this general principle, which has been quoted today in the International Herald Tribune, and which my centre proposed some years ago, is to have a repetition of the Shanghai communiqué like the ‘relation context’ created between Washington and Beijing at the time of Nixon and Premier Zhou Enlai. What I am saying is that we need to start thinking about how to create a discreet dialogue with the US, while trying to avoid the appearance of progress in the mass media the day after.
The Landau principles say that, when you have complex phenomena, you need to start from a few elements and build up confidence before moving to the other elements. What I am proposing, then, is not a comprehensive nuclear solution like the previous one, but an interim solution to cool the tense relations down. It is based on three elements – a few are better than 10 or 20. In any complex track I and II negotiations, you need to find enough space for creating consensus in your domestic constituency.
The first is a voluntary confidence-building measure. I am not proposing within this short period – i.e. a few months – to continue with the zero-enrichment approach. It should be replaced by a different form of negotiations by an international consortium for enrichment. Tehran would signal to the IAEA, not to the mass media, that it is slowing down production of uranium enrichment to create some sort of confidence. On the other hand, the E3+3 must start to think seriously about how to negotiate a fuel-supply agreement in order to meet its future nuclear-energy needs. This is not new. Tariq Rauf proposed some kind of backup mechanism many years ago to ensure the supply of nuclear fuel. Instead of trying to create a complex mechanism of black boxes for centrifuges and complicated swaps, let us establish, based on the market, some supply arrangement for the Tehran Research Reactor and the current and future nuclear-power plants.
The second point is the most serious concern for the international community, due to its potential military dimension. What I am proposing, again in my minimalist approach, is that Iran must agree to a proliferation-resistant technical solution concerning the production, to date, of about 80kg of uranium enriched up to the 20% level. For people who are not physicists, if you feed a centrifuge with an already-high level of enrichment, the time to reach weapon level is shorter. In the past, the international community tried two approaches. One was a Russian proposal to send the 20% enriched material to third countries with a technical capability or to reinvent the term ‘fuel swap’. These could be confidence-building measures by Iran. Of course, the E3+3 would need to reciprocate. What I suggest is a refurbishment of the Tehran Research Reactor with two marginal measures that are not proliferation concerns: providing particle accelerators for the production of radioisotopes for nuclear medicine – this has also been suggested to North Korea; and, in order to attract the attention of the decision-makers in Tehran, solving the well known Eurodif problem concerning the reimbursement of 50 tonnes of uranium. These steps can be achieved in a way that saves face for both the international community and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The last temporary interim item in this nuclear package is not confidence-building, but a voluntary transparency measure, and this is the most serious one. Iran would allow visits to the workshops where centrifuges are manufactured, particularly the newer models, and would agree to establish some accounting mechanism such as the one proposed this morning in the ABACC agreement. The aim of this voluntary transparency measure would be to assure the international community that the manufactured centrifuges are not transferred to non-declared facilities. This last measure is outside the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement and, in some ways, also outside the Additional Protocol. It should be the sort of transparency measure that Iran could consider in order to create this trust.
My two main political recommendations are that we need to create a face-saving solution for all parties. We need to involve more proactively North Atlantic countries. I have been studying recently the security arrangements in the Persian Gulf, and I am fully convinced that the GCC countries are fundamental to the solution rather than the problem. Finally, once the E3+3 decide the minimum benchmarks and the framework in which to conduct the negotiations, the negotiations should be given to the IAEA. Any progress made should be reported in a discreet manner, without involving the mass media. Thank you.
Mark Fitzpatrick
I appreciated hearing your forward-looking suggestions for a preliminary nuclear action plan, and I noted that you have discussed this with Iranian counterparts, which is important. I give the final presentation to Erzsébet.
