“The dilemma of the West is that the deal it could get today is worse than the deal it could have gotten a year ago but better than what it could get a year from now. At some point a decision is better to cut one’s losses,” said non-proliferation analyst Mark Fitzpatrick of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Tehran may not have to jeopardise its future ability to resume enrichment following a moratorium
VIENNA: The time has come to strike a compromise on Iran’s uranium enrichment work in order to keep the current nuclear crisis from spinning out of control, several key experts and diplomats said.
Diplomats at the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have been seeking to outline a compromise amid widespread concern over Tehran’s goals for enrichment. The process can produce fuel for a nuclear power reactor but also the core material of an atom bomb.
The UN watchdog diplomats are mulling a text by US academic Matthew Bunn, ‘Placing Iran’s enrichment activities in standby,’ which suggests offering reassurances to Tehran that it would not have to jeopardise its ‘future ability to resume enrichment’ following a moratorium.“The stakes are very high at the moment,” Bunn, a nuclear expert from Harvard University, told AFP by telephone. “No matter how this situation with Iran plays out, it will have huge effects for the future of the global effort to stem the spread of nuclear weapons.”
Bunn’s text tries to ease Tehran’s ‘concern about being able to move rapidly to large-scale enrichment if foreign fuel supplies are ever interrupted.’The solution is ‘for Iran to suspend enrichment activities without compromising its future ability to resume enrichment.’ This could be achieved by placing ‘the 164-centrifuge cascade at Natanz in a standby mode,’ the text says.
This would be either a ‘cold’ option of shutting down the plant entirely or a ‘warm standby’ of letting centrifuges spin but empty of the uranium gas needed to make nuclear fuel. But the United States is holding fast to its insistence that Iran should not be allowed to spin even one of the centrifuge machines that make enriched uranium as this could help it acquire the ‘breakout capacity’ to make nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, Iran has since April been producing small quantities of enriched uranium at the 164-centrifuge cascade and is planning to install more cascades.
“The dilemma of the West is that the deal it could get today is worse than the deal it could have gotten a year ago but better than what it could get a year from now. At some point a decision is better to cut one’s losses,” said non-proliferation analyst Mark Fitzpatrick of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Bunn said the United States and Europe need to be sure “the standby activities would not significantly increase Iran’s capacity to manufacture nuclear weapons material.”
But “to be acceptable to Iran, an agreed approach would likely have to maintain Iran’s ability to restart operations at Natanz,” its enrichment facility in the center of the country, Bunn’s text said.
The United States has however rejected the “warm” option of letting centrifuges spin empty after having asking for and received a technical assessment from the IAEA.
The IAEA assessment, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, said that even reduced enrichment work would help Iran move towards “successful long-term sustained centrifuge operation.” One diplomat close to the IAEA warned, however, that it made no sense to torpedo talks because of small-scale enrichment work Iran is already doing and which is not yet a proliferation risk.
Bunn said that Russia, China and even EU states like Germany could resist any attempt to escalate the crisis if “it gets to the point where it looks like there could be a deal on the 164-centrifuge cascade.”
But Washington-based non-proliferation expert David Albright said in an email to Bunn that his proposal “does not appear to offer anything new.” AFP
