The Iranian nuclear crisis (page 2)
The findings had been broadly summarised in ElBaradei’s reports to the IAEA board. However, he had refused to endorse the paper because he was not certain that the intelligence on which it was based was genuine. On 5 October, he said the IAEA ‘has no concrete proof of an ongoing weapons programme in Iran’, but that it did harbour ‘concerns about Iran’s future intentions’.
The Geneva deal
While these ominous developments were unfolding, the US and other major powers were involved in secret negotiations with Iran, with the IAEA acting as intermediary.
The result was a deal announced after Iranian officials met representatives of the ‘E3+3’ (Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia and the United States) in Geneva on 1 October, in talks led by EU foreign-policy chief Javier Solana. During the lunch break, US State Department official William Burns had a one-on-one meeting with Saeed Jalili, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, in the most significant bilateral diplomatic engagement since the 1979 hostage crisis.
19.75% LEU by Argentina, which also supplied fuel that Iran says will run out by the end of 2010. (Given its small size, the 5MWt reactor is not a proliferation risk, in contrast to North Korea’s ‘5MWe’ reactor, which Pyongyang refers to by its electrical output so as to imply that its purpose is for power production, but which has a thermal output about five times larger.)
The Geneva deal, which, subject to the approval of national governments, was solidified in Vienna on 21 October, offers large mutual benefits and carries large risks. Confidence would be built on both sides if Iran were to part with the bulk of its LEU, and Russia and France were to send it back as fuel. Such an arrangement would establish a principle that Iranian uranium could be enriched outside the country, and would set a precedent for a potential long-term solution under which all LEU produced in Iran could be exported for manufacture into fuel for Iranian reactors.
A positive interpretation of the agreement from a Western perspective is that it amounts to a face-saving way to freeze Iran’s enrichment work temporarily. If the 1,200kg were exported immediately, Iran would be left with a stockpile of about 500kg (on the basis that 1,500kg had been produced up until July 2009, plus about 80kg per month since). Roughly 1,200kg is needed for one nuclear weapon, after further enrichment. The export would, therefore, buy time, reducing the immediate risk of weapons production during negotiations on a long-term solution. However, this time saved is perishable because any agreement on the details is unlikely to come soon. Iranian officials speaking to reporters after the Geneva meeting even challenged the suggestion that the size of the proposed LEU shipment had been agreed. Meanwhile, continuing enrichment would replace the 1,200kg in 15 months at the most recently reported rate of production, or sooner if Iran operates more centrifuges.
The 19.75% enriched fuel that Iran would receive in return could in principle contribute to a weapons stockpile if reconverted to gasified form and further enriched. However, the fuel elements would probably be sent back to Iran in a form that would make it impractical to try this. Any attempt to reconvert and further enrich the fuel would be readily apparent to IAEA inspectors and would be tantamount to a declaration of weapons intent that could well provoke pre-emptive military action.
One effect of the deal would be to allow the West to escape a potential trap. Iran had asked the IAEA to find a supplier of replacement fuel for the Tehran reactor. If talks on the details fail, Iran will claim justification for enriching up to 19.75% itself. Refusal of Iran's request also would have undermined international fuel-supply guarantee plans that have sought to give states an incentive not to seek indigenous enrichment capabilities.
Significant concession
The main downside to the deal from a Western perspective is that it implicitly accepts enrichment in Iran. Repeated UN Security Council resolutions have demanded that Iran suspend this activity. Sanctions that flow from these resolutions remain in place and are not likely to be lifted until the exchange deal is formalised and Iran accepts transparency arrangements including the IAEA Additional Protocol, which increases the agency’s inspection powers. On 7 October Iran repeated that it had no intention of signing that instrument.
However, the Geneva and Vienna talks, which reversed Iran’s previous insistence that it would not discuss its nuclear programme with any party except the IAEA, showed that the leadership in Tehran can change its position. It is conceivable that it could permit more transparency and accept limits on its nuclear programme in order to head off further sanctions. In spite of the progress in the talks, Washington is in discussion with other countries about new sanctions should talks fail. The revelation of the secret plant, as well as the new intelligence assessments, has increased pressure for a tightening of sanctions.
The implicit legitimisation of Iranian enrichment would be a significant concession by the major powers. For Tehran, it could represent a foreign-policy success that could help to counter-balance the domestic political turmoil and loss of government legitimacy seen since the June presidential election. The deal undermines the Western rationale for export controls on nuclear and dual-use items for Iran, and will make it harder to persuade Iran’s neighbours to accept limitations on enrichment.
Western governments, however, may see this as a better avenue than the indefinite prolongation of a status quo in which Iran continues to amass enriched uranium and to limit its cooperation with the IAEA. For them, the least bad option may be to restrict Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium to less than the amount needed for a nuclear weapon, while ensuring transparency measures are in place so that clandestine production can be detected.
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