THE PROSPECTS for the Geneva nuclear talks which opened yesterday between Iran and six world powers were not helped by Tehran’s announcement on Sunday that it has produced its own uranium concentrates – “yellowcake” – to reduce reliance on UN-embargoed imports of the ingredient for nuclear fuel. Not exactly the actions of a government that wants to reassure the world community.
Since 2006, the UN Security Council has repeatedly called on Iran to halt its nuclear enrichment work. It sees the programme as laying the basis for the production of fuel for nuclear weapons and has punished Tehran with four rounds of now substantial sanctions that, according to US estimates, have deprived the country of $60 billion in energy-related investment. Tehran continues to insist on its right to enrich uranium to fuel reactors for making electricity and medical isotopes, and wants any talks to focus also on regional security guarantees.
The six world powers are being led in Geneva by the EU’s foreign policy chief Baroness Ashton, joined by senior diplomats from the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, but the two sides had not even agreed an agenda for the meeting, the first in 14 months. “Don’t expect much of anything,” a negotiator from one of the six said yesterday before they convened, while diplomats suggested that re-engagement itself and even an agreement to meet again for more substantive talks, perhaps early in the new year, would be a sign of progress.
Iran’s approach to the talks has been hardened by the distracting clatter of what in the theatre would be described as “noises off”: a mysterious bombing which killed a senior Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran last week, blamed by the latter on the US, UK and Israel; the recent successful cyber attack on some of its nuclear centrifuges; and, not least, the revelation from WikiLeaks that Persian Gulf leaders have pressed for a military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities and that US officials never really believed that engagement with Iran would work. US personnel remain fearful that Iran will not come seriously to the table until it believes there is a real and imminent threat of military action against it.
Yet there have also been hints from the US in recent days that a deal may be possible which would allow Iran to retain a limited right to lower-level enrichment in the context of a civil nuclear programme in return for enhanced international inspections.
It is to be hoped negotiators may indicate a willingness to revive a deal which collapsed last year under which Tehran would export some of its low-grade uranium for processing externally in return for a limited number of highly enriched rods needed for a research reactor (but not pure enough for a weapon). Since the deal collapsed Iran has undertaken more processing, upsetting the balance of the agreement and making its reopening more difficult. But although the reactor deal is small beer in terms of overall Iranian uranium stocks, the issues raised are a test of the good will and good faith of both sides. Each of which has been in short supply.