More On Iran Accepting P5+1 Talks

By Cernig

The always-excellent Gareth Porter at IPS has been busy chasing down the rumors.

The head of Iran's atomic energy agency, Gholam-Reza Aghazadeh, told members of the Majlis energy committee Monday that Iran has agreed to start the talks, according to the Farsi-language Iranian website Fararou. It said "informed sources" had specified that Iran had accepted a six-week freeze on any expansion of enrichment as a condition on such negotiations, as proposed by European Union foreign affairs chief Javier Solana.

...ISNA reported in a brief item on Monday that an Iranian parliamentary energy committee member, whom it did not name, had declared that Iran "has agreed to start talks with 5+1 countries group". It added that the talks "will begin next week".

Although ISNA did not report that the official had said Iran would freeze its nuclear activities, in the sense of foregoing any increase in centrifuges, it implied as much by reporting that the P5+1 proposal delivered by Solana Jun. 14 "required Iran to suspend nuclear activities in exchange for a set of economic and security incentives".

The news further quoted unnamed "Iranian officials" as saying that "common points of the two packages can be a launching pad to start talks".

...The formal P5+1 proposal given to Iranian officials by EU foreign affairs commissioner Javier Solana Jun. 14 was a repackaging of the mid-2006 proposal to Tehran. But it was accompanied by a six-week "freeze for freeze" proposal under which Iran would not increase the level of its enrichment efforts and the P5+1 would freeze the movement towards tougher sanctions against Iran, according to diplomats in London quoted by Reuters Jun. 21.

That would enable "pre-negotiations" to begin between the two sides on "parameters for formal negotiations", according to the diplomats.

Beginning formal negotiations, however, were said to require that Iran to "fully suspend" enrichment, meaning that it would actually temporarily halt the enrichment.

The formal negotiations envisaged would last "up to six months", according to the diplomats cited by Reuters, during which time the halt to enrichment would have to continue.

The remarks by energy committee secretary Hosseini implied that Iran's commitment was only to the six-week freeze on the level of its nuclear activities and not to an actual suspension of enrichment as required for the formal stage of negotiations.

But Mottaki, in remarks at a luncheon meeting with reporters at the Iranian mission in New York, suggested that the Iranians might be prepared to go further.

Mottaki said that there were sufficient commonalities between the Solana proposal on behalf of the P5+1 and Iran's own proposals for negotiations to provide the basis for talks. That remark, paralleling the unattributed view reported by ISNA on Monday, suggested that Iran was preparing to enter into substantive negotiations. Furthermore, Mottaki failed to repeat the standard Iranian statement that enrichment is Iran's legitimate right, even though he was repeatedly questioned on the point.

Those who are hawkish about Iran will see this as a stalling tactic and won't believe that Iran will ever be a good-faith actor in negotiations. I find that position reminiscent of John Bolton's assertions that negotiating with North Korea wouldn't lead to any substantial disarmament breakthroughs, just stalling while secret development continued. Others will say that Iran is simply trying to run out the Bush clock and hopefully deal with a less aggressively hawkish US. That's almsot certainly true. But then again, it seems to me that there's also a damn good chance Iran really wants to come to a negotiated settlement on this issue. Being sanctioned and continually threatened with attack for doing something that's within every NPT member nation's rights isn't good for Iran, and they must surely want that situation to end well rather than badly.