Iran’s nuclear programme - Volume 10, Issue 9 - November 2004

 

Despite last-minute haggling, Iran and the EU-3 (the UK, France and Germany) have reached agreement to restore a ‘temporary’ suspension of Iran’s uranium-enrichment programme. In exchange, the Europeans sponsored a resolution at the IAEA Board of Governor’s meeting, adopted on 29 November 2004, that did not refer Iran to the UN Security Council. The stage is now set for the EU-3 to enter into negotiations with Iran, scheduled to start in mid-December, in order to seek a long-term agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions. Prospects for the talks are uncertain, however, and a key factor will be the US position on any possible Iranian–European deal.

 

 

In the spring of 2003, in the aftermath of the Iraq war, Tehran approached Washington in secret, with an offer to begin negotiations aimed at resolving concerns about its fuel-cycle programme, the existence of which had first come to light in August 2002. Washington spurned Tehran’s advances, however, following the May 2003 bombings in Riyadh, which the US traced to senior al-Qaeda officials residing in Iran. Concerned that it was next on Washington’s target list, and faced with the threat of referral to the UN Security Council for past violations of its Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA, Iran turned to Europe for a diplomatic solution. In October 2003, the French, German and British foreign ministers reached agreement with Hassan Rowhani, secretary of the powerful Supreme National Security Council, whereby Iran pledged full cooperation with the IAEA to address and resolve outstanding issues; to allow more intrusive IAEA inspections under the Additional Protocol; and to voluntarily suspend all uranium-enrichment and reprocessing activities, pending efforts to negotiate a permanent resolution of the nuclear issue. In return, the EU-3 agreed to block American efforts to refer Iran to the UN Security Council for past violations of its safeguards agreement.

 

By early 2004, however, as America’s predicament in Iraq deepened, an emboldened Iran began to renege on the October 2003 deal. In April, Iran informed the IAEA that it intended to begin ‘hot tests’ at its uranium conversion facility at Isfahan, after which Iran began to convert small amounts of natural uranium into UF6 (uranium hexaflouride), the feed material used in centrifuges. After being criticised at the June 2004 IAEA Board of Governors meeting, Iran notified the IAEA that it intended to resume manufacture of centrifuge components as well as testing and assembling centrifuges. In response, the EU-3 hardened their position and supported a resolution at the 18 September IAEA board meeting that implicitly threatened to refer Iran to the UN Security Council if Tehran did not restore the full suspension of its enrichment programme. In the face of this threat, an Iranian team, headed by Amir Hossein Zamani-Nia, held a series of meetings with a delegation from the EU-3 (headed by John Sawers of the UK, Stanislas de Laboulaye of France and Juergen Chrobog of Germany), and a new suspension agreement was announced in Paris on 15 November.

 

In essence, the Paris agreement restores that of October 2003, although it elaborates on several key points. In particular, the scope of suspension has been specified. In the October 2003 agreement, the scope of suspension was left ambiguous and Iran exploited this to resume some elements of its enrichment programme. In Paris, however, it was specified that ‘Iran has decided, on a voluntary basis, to continue and extend its suspension to include all enrichment related and reprocessing activities, and specifically: the manufacture and import of gas centrifuges and their components; the assembly, installation, testing or operation of gas centrifuges; work to undertake any plutonium separation, or to construct or operate any plutonium separation installation; and all tests or production at any uranium conversion installation.’ In the endgame of the Paris negotiations, Tehran sought to exclude the production of uranium tetraflouride (UF4, the intermediate chemical form of UF6) from the suspension. But the EU-3 held out and Iran eventually agreed to accept a complete suspension – although Tehran delayed implementation of the suspension until 22 November in order to produce a few tonnes of UF6.

 

While the scope of the suspension has been specified, its duration remains ambiguous, as in the October 2003 agreement. The Iranians initially argued that any new suspension should be for a specific period of time, such as six months, while the Europeans insisted on an indefinite period, until agreement was reached on a final settlement. The Iranians argued that an indefinite suspension linked to conclusion of a long-term agreement would allow the EU-3 to drag out talks indefinitely, while the Europeans feared that a defined period of suspension would give Tehran an easy excuse to lift the suspension once the time ran out. The final compromise specifies that ‘[t]he suspension will be sustained while negotiations proceed on a mutually acceptable agreement on long-term arrangements’. Thus, Iran has kept its option open to declare an end to the EU-3–Iran talks and resume enrichment at any point in the future, while the EU-3 have preserved their option to refer Iran to the UN Security Council if Iran renounces the suspension.

 

While Iran wanted some benefits in exchange for suspending its enrichment programme, the EU-3 argued against giving Iran any benefits for restoring an agreement that it had already reneged on. Nonetheless, the EU-3 agreed to some symbolic measures, which Iranian negotiators said would help them sell the agreement back home. In particular, ‘[t]he EU-3 will support the IAEA Director General inviting Iran to join the Expert Group on Multilateral Approaches to the Nuclear Fuel Cycle’ and ‘once suspension has been verified, the negotiations with the EU on a Trade and Co-operation Agreement will resume’.

 

On the day that the Paris agreement was announced, the IAEA released a report to the Board of Governors that summarised the status of its investigations thus far. On the one hand, the report catalogued Iran’s breaches and policy of concealment in the areas of uranium enrichment, uranium conversion and plutonium separation, which continued until October 2003. On the other hand, the report concludes that Iran has since then made good progress in correcting these breaches. Still, two issues remain outstanding regarding undeclared enrichment activities in Iran: the origin of low- and high-enriched uranium particle contamination found at various locations in Iran; and the extent of Iran’s efforts to import, manufacture and use centrifuges of both the P-1 and P-2 designs. The IAEA will need to clarify these issues before it can report that Iran has corrected its past safeguards violations. In addition, the IAEA will need to investigate reports of secret nuclear facilities, such as claims made by the Mujahideen–e Khalq (MEK) opposition group of a clandestine enrichment facility in the Lavizan district of north-east Tehran. As the IAEA Board of Governors meeting got underway in Vienna on 25 November, the IAEA also reported that Iran had restored the suspension, after having produced about two tonnes of UF6 at the Isfahan facility.

 

European efforts to win approval for an IAEA Board of Governors resolution ran into some last minute difficulties. Despite its preference for referral to the UN Security Council, Washington had no choice but to acquiesce to the European draft. But Iran raised concerns, particularly since the draft was – in Tehran’s view – not sufficiently clear that the suspension was a voluntary confidence building measure rather than a legal obligation. In addition, Tehran made last-minute demands to exempt testing and research on a small number of centrifuges from the suspension. In the end, however, Iran dropped this demand in exchange for European agreement to soften the language of the IAEA resolution, which was adopted by consensus on 29 November.

 

The resolution calls on Iran to sustain the suspension and requests the IAEA Director General to monitor Iran’s suspension and to report to the Board if it is not fully implemented. Thus, in a concession to Iran, the resolution does not contain an automatic referral to the Security Council if Iran breaks the suspension. In a further concession, the resolution only requires additional reports to the Board from the Director General on Iran ‘as appropriate’. Nonetheless, Iran will clearly remain on the agenda for the next Board meeting, scheduled for March 2005.

 

The EU-3 and Iran are now scheduled to start talks on a long-term agreement, on 15 December. Working groups will be set up on political and security issues, technology and cooperation and nuclear issues, which will report back to delegation leaders by March 2005. The European objectives and strategy in these talks are clear. Above all, the EU-3 will seek to persuade Iran to end its nuclear fuel-cycle programme, which in the Paris agreement is euphemistically called the pursuit of ‘objective guarantees that Iran’s nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes’. In other words, the Europeans seek to turn the current ‘temporary’ suspension into a ‘permanent’ suspension. In exchange, they are offering Iran a variety of political and economic inducements.

 

With regard to nuclear issues, the EU-3 are offering to guarantee fuel supply and management for Iran’s nuclear power programme if Iran ends its fuel-cycle programme and help Iran to acquire a light water research reactor if Iran cancels its current plans to build a heavy water research reactor. In the area of economic cooperation, the Europeans are offering to make progress on an EU–Iran Trade and Cooperation agreement, support Iranian accession to the World Trade Organisation, and relax restrictions on exports of various dual-use technologies to Iran. Finally, in the area of regional security, the EU-3 are offering positive and negative security assurances, cooperation against terrorist organisations (including the MEK), a comprehensive security dialogue with Iran, and pursuit of the objective of a Middle East free of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. If the negotiations fail, the Europeans are prepared to support an IAEA Board of Governors resolution reporting Iran to the UN Security Council for past non-compliance with its safeguards obligations and failure to accept Board requests for confidence-building measures.

 

Iran’s position in these talks is less certain. Publicly, Iran’s leaders have declared that a permanent suspension of its enrichment programme is unacceptable. Even if Iran is willing to forego completion of industrial-scale enrichment facilities, it is likely to seek an exemption to continue research and development and operation of pilot-scale facilities. Iran would clearly prefer to complete the nuclear cycle as a matter of security and national pride, leaving it with the option to produce nuclear weapons. As a result, the upcoming talks may be doomed to failure. In this view, Iran could drag out the talks until it thinks it safe to resume its enrichment programme. For example, once the IAEA completes its investigations of Iran’s past nuclear activities and declares that Iran has corrected past violations, which could take place by the June 2005 Board meeting, Iran may feel more confident that the UN Security Council is less likely to take punitive measures if Iran resumes its enrichment programme under IAEA safeguards.

 

On the other hand, Iran has demonstrated caution about risking a confrontation with the UN Security Council, especially since its permanent members are in agreement that Iran should be stopped from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. From this standpoint, Tehran might be willing to forego further development of its nuclear weapons potential if the EU-3 is able to deliver an attractive package of inducements. Security inducements are likely to be the most difficult issues in the negotiations, because Iran may seek conditions that Europe cannot meet, such as conventional arms sales, the creation of a nuclear-weapons free zone (implying the disestablishment of Israel’s nuclear infrastructure) in the Middle East, and security guarantees if Iran is attacked by another nuclear power. 

 

While the EU-3 and Iran are engaged in diplomatic efforts, the US has remained a sceptical bystander. Washington is convinced that the Iranians are duping the Europeans, and that the negotiations will be unsuccessful. If they fail, Washington will press for action at the Security Council. If the EU-3–Iran negotiations succeed in permanently ending Iran’s nuclear fuel cycle programme, then Washington is likely to endorse the agreement. The most difficult scenario for Washington, however, will emerge if a deal between the EU-3 and Iran requires the US to contribute assurances and incentives to make a deal possible. In this circumstance, Washington will be under pressure to overcome its suspicion of Iran in order to avoid being blamed for the failure of a diplomatic solution.