IRAN: Iran's reply to a big-power offer of incentives to end sensitive nuclear work asks for a timeline to implement the package and specifics on security arrangements, two Iranian experts said in a website report yesterday.
The account by the Iranian academics, one of whom has had good connections to Iranian officialdom, appeared the first to detail some of the 100 questions Iran posed in a response to end a stand-off with the West.
Washington said on Wednesday that Iran's request for talks fell short of a UN Security Council demand that it stop enriching uranium by August 31st or risk sanctions. But it said Iran saw its reply as serious and that major powers would study it further.
Academics Abbas Maleki and Kaveh Afrasiabi said Iran's response asked for a definite timeline for the promised trade and technology incentives.
They said Iran wanted a brief reference in the incentives package to a possible Iranian role in a regional security arrangement - a critical concern for the Islamic Republic given US hostility to its current leaders - to be fleshed out. Iran also asked, they said, why the package mentioned Iran's obligations to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty but not to an NPT article pertaining to a country's "inalienable right" to acquire nuclear technology.
Further, Iran had requested firm guarantees on offered nuclear technology assistance, as well as a nuclear fuel supply from abroad.
"Iran also seeks clarity on the status of [ existing] US sanctions that prohibit offers of nuclear and technology assistance to Iran - is the US willing to lift some if not all of those sanctions?" Maleki and Afrasiabi said. They said Iran further asked for specifics in a promise of a co-operation accord between Iran and Euratom, a EU treaty dealing with issues of nuclear energy.
"By agreeing to put the issue of suspension on the table and commence talks immediately," the two Iranian experts wrote, "Iran has sent a strong signal that the internal debate between power centres in Iran's leadership has ended in favour of voices of moderation seeking a mutually satisfactory resolution of the nuclear standoff."