Iran:
Nuclear Talks Fail
As
West Remains Adamant
Yohannan
Chemarapally
THE
latest round of talks to resolve the long running dispute
over Iran’s nuclear
programme seem to have once again ended without making much
progress. The
talks, the second within a short span of time, had taken
place in the
salubrious climes of Almaty, the former capital of Kazakhstan,
in early April. The
venue was carefully chosen, as Kazakhstan
had positioned itself as an honest broker between the West
and Iran.
In the
talks held in Almaty in February, between Iran and the
P-5+1, meaning the five
permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany,
the two sides had decided
to adjourn the meeting on a slightly positive note, claiming
that some progress
was being made to resolve the contentious nuclear issue.
TALKS
BACK TO
SQUARE
ONE
But
after the latest round of talks, the situation seems to have
reverted to square
one. The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine
Ashton, who was head
of the P-5+1 delegation, told the media that the two sides
had failed to reach
an agreement and that they still “remain far apart on
substance.” The Iranian side
once again refused to countenance the core demand from the
West --- of bringing
down its uranium enrichment level from the current 20 per
cent. In return,
Teheran was offered a modest relief from the international
sanctions the
country has been subjected to. At the February talks, the
Iranians were
specifically told that some of the sanctions on its
petrochemical products and
trade in gold would be lifted if Teheran closed one of its
nuclear facilities.
However, there were no promises from the West regarding the
lifting of the
major sanctions that have hobbled the export of Iranian oil
and adversely
impacted the Iranian economy.
Teheran
has stuck to its position that the international community
should first recognise
its inherent right, as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT), to
enrich uranium before meaningful concessions from their side
could be expected.
Iran’s
top
political leadership, including the supreme leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
and the president, Mohammed Ahmadenijad, have repeatedly
stated that the
country does not want to be nuclear power. Ayatollah
Khameinei had said that
possessing nuclear weaponry was against the tenets of Islam.
Two
days after the collapse of the latest round of talks, Iran
in fact
announced the opening of a new uranium production facility
and two uranium
extraction facilities. Iran
enriches uranium to both 3.5 and 20 per cent levels at the
Natanz and Fordo enrichment
facilities. The UN Security Council had passed a resolution
in 2006, demanding
that Iran
stop the processing of uranium.
Both
sides now have hardened their positions. On a visit to Israel, the US
secretary of state, John Kerry, once again emphasised that
the Obama
administration has not ruled out the option of war against Iran.
President
Barack Obama repeated that “all options are on the table” to
prevent Iran
from
obtaining nuclear weapons. Israel
has been threatening to use this option for many years now.
Israel
has been warning that Iran is only
a
few months away from having the material to fabricate a
nuclear bomb. The
Iranian president, speaking in the second week of March,
claimed that his
country now had mastery “over the entire chain of nuclear
energy.”
NO
BREAKTHROUGH,
BUT
NO BREAKDOWN
The
two sides have, however, agreed to continue talking despite
the rise in
tensions and heated rhetoric. Ashton said that “there was a
real back and
forth” during the latest round of talks. The general
consensus was that though
there was no breakthrough, there was also no breakdown of
communications
between the two sides. Ashton said that she hopes to get in
touch with Iran’s chief
negotiator, Saeed Jalili “in order to see how to go
forward.”
On
his part, Jalili said that the ball was now in the court of
the West. He told
the media that Iran
had put forward concrete proposals to address the
international community’s
concerns about its nuclear programme. He said that the
international community
might need more time to study it and then come back for more
meaningful talks.
Jalili again emphasised that there was no question of Iran
ever
compromising on its right to enrich uranium. He also added
that talks could only
succeed if certain powers gave up their “hostile intentions”
towards Iran.
It has
become increasingly clear that Washington’s real intentions
is to bring about a
regime change in Teheran and once again completely dominate
the energy rich
region, like it did till the 1970s.
A
former Iranian spokesperson for the Iranian negotiating team
in nuclear talks
with the US,
Ambassador
Hossein Moussavian, who is currently a research scholar in Princeton University,
has said that the West’s strategy is “inadvertently pushing
Iran
towards
nuclear weapons.” The Obama administration has continued
with the previous
administration’s policy of characterising Iran
as a “rogue state” and keeps
on issuing dire threats of war against the country. A 2007
US National
Intelligence Estimate, based on inputs from American
intelligence agencies, had
concluded that Iran
had given up work on its nuclear weapons programme in 2002.
Iran
is the
current chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and has
considerable backing
in the international community. The NAM
has called for the denuclearisation of West Asia and
demanded that Israel sign
the
NPT immediately. A UN resolution passed late last year,
approved by a vote of
174-6, made the call for Israel
to join the NPT “without further delay.” Israel
has a nuclear arsenal said
to contain anything between 75 to 400 nuclear warheads.
SANCTIONS
MUST
GO
The
Non-Aligned Movement has voiced its strong disagreement on
the sanctions being
imposed on Iran
that have caused widespread problems for the common man
there.
The
sanctions have adversely affected the Iranian rial and
triggered runaway
inflation, making the prices of essential commodities and
medicine go through
the ceiling. The government has said that Iranian oil
exports are down by 40
per cent, while revenues have been reduced by 45 per cent.
The Iranian rial has
lost half its value against the dollar. “Sanctions are
painful but they make us
more self-reliant,” Ayatollah Khameinei had said some time
back.
The
unilateral American sanctions on Iran
have come for strong criticism from countries like Brazil
and South
Africa.
China has
been ignoring the US
mandated secondary sanctions and is
continuing to do business with Iran.
But countries like India
have buckled down under US pressure, sharply reducing trade
with Iran.
The
Indian government says that it only implements UN mandated
sanctions and is,
instead, blaming Indian private companies for backing down
under pressure from
the West.
Iran,
like North Korea,
is seeking guarantees from Washington
that it would not be subjected to an attack by the US
or its allies in the region
before it makes concessions on the nuclear issue. It also
wants the West to
spell out clearly a time line for the lifting of sanctions.
The US
after all had a long history of involvement
in the internal affairs of Iran,
starting from the time of the brief ouster of the Shah of
Iran by the
democratically elected government headed by Mohammed
Mossadegh in 1953. After
the final departure of the Shah in 1979, Washington
stepped up its interference despite the signing of the
“Algiers Treaty” of 1981
which had ended the “hostage crisis” that had erupted
between the countries. Washington
had pledged at the time that it “would not
intervene directly or indirectly, politically or militarily,
in Iran’s
internal
affairs.” The US
had also
promised to remove all the sanctions it had imposed on Iran
that were
imposed immediately after the success of the Islamic
Revolution.
Washington
wasted no time on reneging on its commitment. It encouraged
the Iraqi invasion
of Iran
and then stood by as the two countries bled each other to
bankruptcy in the war
which lasted for more than eight years. In 1988, at the fag
end of that war,
the US Navy shot down an Iranian passenger plane over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 on
board. There were more than a million
casualties on both sides, but the Iranian military proved to
the world that it
was no pushover and would fight to the last to preserve the
country’s
sovereignty and integrity.
WEST
HAS ALWAYS
BEEN
CRYING WOLF
On
the nuclear issue, the West has been crying “wolf” for a
long time, charging
that Iran
was involved in a clandestine programme to make a nuclear
weapon. In 1984, the
West German intelligence claimed that Iran
was only two years away from
the bomb. The claim was widely reported in the western
media. West
Germany
was building a nuclear reactor for the Shah and work on it
was proceeding apace
when he was overthrown. Nuclear reactors were all right for
Iran
as Shah
was a staunch ally of the West. His overthrow was never
considered an
eventuality as he commanded one of the strongest armies in
the regions and
presided over a dreaded secret service, known as the
“Savak.” Every other year,
reports appear in the West about a new “smoking gun” that
had been discovered
proving that Iran
was on the verge of producing a nuclear weapon. This year,
the Israelis have
been claiming that Iran
can now make a nuclear bomb within four to six months. In
2011, the Washington
Post had claimed that Iran was only
62 days away from the bomb. Taking the cake, there was a
report in the Wall
Street Journal this year stating
that Iran
could buy a bomb
any time it wishes from North Korea.
Israel
has kept on threatening the use of force against Iranian
nuclear installations.
The US Congress recently passed a resolution that it is duty
bound to come to Israel’s
aid if there is a military
confrontation with Iran.
The new US
secretary of state, John Kerry, had warned of “terrible
consequences could
follow the failure of talks.” The Pentagon has been
systematically building up
its military forces in the region while at the same time
further strengthening
the armed forces of its allies in the region.
The
Iranian president as well as the country’s supreme leader
have warned
Washington and Tel Aviv from making any foolhardy moves.
Speaking on the
occasion of Iran’s
Army Day
on April 18, President Ahmadenijad said that the foreign
military presence in
the region was the source of insecurity in the Persian Gulf. The US
has military bases in almost all the monarchies that are in
Iran’s
neighbourhood.
The Iranian army chief, General Hasan Firouzabadi, directly
warned Israel
about
the dangers of military intervention. “We see Israel’s
threats as a scream that
comes out of fear. If they do anything wrong, there will be
no Israel
left on
the political map,” the General warned.
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