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The European Union foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, and Iran’s chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili, at the start of the talks.
ALMATY, Kazakhstan – Two days of talks between six world powers and Iran over its nuclear program ended on Wednesday with specific agreement for further meetings in March and April over a proposal that would sharply constrain Iran’s stockpile of the most dangerous enriched uranium in return for a modest lifting of some sanctions.
But the six powers dropped their demand that Iran shut down its enrichment plant at Fordo, built deep into a mountain, instead insisting the Iran suspend enrichment work there and agree to unspecified conditions that would make it hard to quickly resume enrichment there. The six also agreed, in another apparent softening, that Iran could produce and keep a small amount of 20 percent enriched uranium for use in a reactor to produce medical isotopes.
The two sides agreed that technical experts would meet to discuss the proposal on March 18 and 19 in Istanbul, while the negotiations at this higher political level will resume, again in Almaty, on April 5 and 6.
The chief Iranian negotiator, Saeed Jalili, called this meeting positive, asserting that the six powers, representing the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany, had offered a revised proposal that was “more realistic” and “closer to the Iranian position.” Mr. Jalili, whose press conference was notably short of the aggressive rhetoric he has used in the past, called the meeting “a turning point.”
But senior Western diplomats were less enthusiastic, saying that Iran had not in fact responded to the proposal of the six and that real bargaining had not yet begun. A senior American official described the meeting as “useful” — refusing to call it positive — and emphasized that it was “concrete results” that count, not atmospherics.
A senior European diplomat was even more skeptical than the American official, saying that the technical meeting was essentially to explain the proposal to the Iranians once again, and that Iran may very well come back in April with an unacceptable counterproposal that swallows the “carrots” of the six and demands more.
The senior American official said that as a first step toward confidence-building and reducing the urgency around the issue, the six were demanding that Iran “significantly restrict” its accumulation of uranium enriched to 20 percent – which can quickly be turned into bomb-grade materiel – and limit its production to what is needed for fuel for the small Tehran Research Reactor to make medical isotopes.
Iran must also “suspend enrichment at Fordo,” a plant deep inside a mountain and very difficult to attack from the air, and accept conditions that “constrain the ability to quickly resume enrichment there,” the official said. Third, Iran must allow more regular and thorough access to monitoring from the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure that it keeps its promises and cannot suddenly “break out” quickly to create a nuclear warhead, so that there is “early warning of any attempt to rapidly or secretly abandon agreed limits and prodece weapons-grade uranium,” the official said.
In return, the official said, the six would suspend some sanctions, but not those involving oil or financial transactions, which are the harshest, and would promise not to vote new sanctions through the United Nations Security Council or the European Union.
“What matters are concrete results on the most urgent issues, on 20 percent enrichment and on Fordo,” the official said, which are “the most destabilizing and urgent elements of Iran’s nuclear program.”
The proposal is a slightly softer modification of the proposal the six made eight months ago in Moscow. There it was described as “stop, shut, ship” – demanding that Iran stop enrichment of uranium to 20 percent purity, shut the Fordo facility and ship abroad its stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium to be turned into nuclear fuel.
Iran and Six Nations Agree to Continue Nuclear Talks
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Iran and Six Nations Agree to Continue Nuclear Talks
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Iran and Six Nations Agree to Continue Nuclear Talks
