Iran deserves a break

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Iran deserves a break ​

English.news.cn 2010-05-29 10:14:36

By Zhai Dequan

BEIJING, May 29 -- The recent tripartite agreement on nuclear-material swapping among Iran, Turkey and Brazil shows that influential countries other than major Western powers have started helping resolve sensitive global issues.

Such efforts should be applauded and encouraged, especially because last year, US President Barack Obama said that instead of depending on America alone, other countries, too, should try and resolve world issues.

Before the tripartite agreement was signed, the UN Security Council was expected to adopt a resolution imposing fresh sanctions on Iran for refusing to swap its low-enriched uranium with another country.

Now, Iran has agreed on the location, time and amount of low-enriched uranium to be swapped and has submitted the list of provisions to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), although it does not fully conform to the Geneva-based agency's conditions.


Since the situation has changed, pre-planned punitive actions, too, should be altered accordingly, meaning there is no longer any rationality in imposing further sanctions on Iran.

Moreover, since Iran is party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and is legally entitled to peaceful use of nuclear power, it is preposterous to say that it should not process nuclear materials to generate electricity.

The IAEA has carried out many (4,500 time/person) normal and sudden inspections on Iranian nuclear installations - possibly the highest number on an NPT signatory state, and said their status was "not away from the normal track". As long as IAEA verifies that Iran's nuclear activities as safe and gets the country's cooperation, further sanctions are unnecessary.

As media reports said, US and Russian leaders had hinted that the participation of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in the Non-Alignment Movement summit in Teheran on May 17 was the last chance for Iran to avoid fresh UN sanctions.

The tripartite nuclear deal was reached after strenuous efforts, and Iran earnestly hopes it would help it to avoid further sanctions. So high is Iran's hope that it has threatened to scrap the deal and go it alone if the UN Security Council still goes ahead with its plan to impose fresh sanctions.

Sanctions against a country prove useful only when they are imposed timely and properly. But generally speaking, they have not proved to be of much use in most of the cases till now. Instead, they have usually fanned confrontational emotions and hatred, and made matters more complicated.


That's why it is very important to give high consideration to humanitarian factors and normal economic activities while preparing the case for sanctions against a country. After all, the disastrous effects of sanctions fall squarely on the common people of the target country.

Sanctions, actually, are a way of dragging a country to the talks' table. Hence, they should not be imposed randomly.

Non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and blocking their channels of delivery is our common objective, but we should achieve it through justice, legality, equality and rationality.

Mutual trust should be the basis for resolving all major international issues, and ideological bias and double standards should be avoided. As a saying goes, "if you want a friend, he may not be there; if you want to make an enemy, he will appear."

As for the Iranian nuclear issue, it can be settled only through dialogue, interaction and cooperation, and hence the UN Security Council should not impose fresh sanctions against the country, because it may only succeed in causing suffering to the Iranian people.​

The author is deputy secretary general of China Arms Control and Disarmament Association.

(Source: China Daily)
Iran deserves a break

 

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Washington feels heat over Iran fuel deal​

By Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON - Although the Barack Obama administration continued to dismiss the May 17 Iranian fuel swap agreement Friday, there are indications that Iran's acceptance of the agreement has shaken unity among United Nations Security Council members on sanctions, and is bringing Russian diplomatic pressure on the United States to participate in new talks with Iran on the swap arrangement - something the administration clearly wished to avoid.

In a hastily arranged conference call with reporters last Friday afternoon, three "senior administration officials" assailed the new swap agreement, brokered by Brazil and Turkey, for failing to address what was described as Iran's decision to continue enrichment of uranium to 20%, the increase in Iran's low-enriched
uranium (LEU) stocks since last October or UN Security Council resolutions demanding a suspension of all enrichment.

In a telltale sign that the Iranian move has shaken previous unity among the permanent Security Council members on sanctions, however, one of the officials sidestepped a question about the present stance of Russia and China on sanctions.

Far from expressing confidence that the agreement still held, the official would only say, "We've been working with the full council to resolve any outstanding issues."

United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced an agreement on a draft resolution on sanctions within hours of the May 17 Iranian fuel swap agreement in Tehran.

An article published on Xinhua News Agency on Saturday by Zhai Dequan, the deputy secretary general of China's Arms Control and Disarmament Association, appears to signal that China is backing out of the previous agreement on sanctions against Iran.

Citing Iran's agreement to the specifics of the swap deal, the article concluded, "Since the situation has changed, pre-planned punitive actions, too, should be altered accordingly, meaning there is no longer any rationality in imposing further sanctions on Iran."

The views expressed by the association have often reflected the policies of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, which had already issued a statement welcoming Iran's agreement on the swap proposal.

In remarks to reporters on Thursday reported by RTT News, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow "welcomes" the fuel swap deal. "The arrangement serves the interests of settling the Iranian nuclear problem," Lavrov said, "and, therefore, we believe everything should be done to implement it."

Lavrov said Russia was talking with Brazil and Turkey, as well as with the US and France, on how to implement the swap deal.

The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Friday, also reported by RTT News, confirming that Lavrov had a phone conversation with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Thursday. Summarizing the conversation, it said, "Russia expressed its readiness to actively support the advancement of the process of negotiation aimed at resolving the situation surrounding the Iranian nuclear program."

Mottaki was meanwhile expressing confidence on Friday that the so-called Vienna Group, comprising the United States, Russia, France and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), would reconvene to work out the details of the proposal Iran had communicated to the IAEA.

Speaking to reporters at an economic forum in Bulgaria, Mottaki said he had spoken to Lavrov by phone on Thursday about the fuel swap plan. "To my understanding, I think the Vienna Group are considering [it] positively," said Mottaki.

"As soon as their response to [IAEA director general Yukiya] Amano comes, I think negotiations will start," he added.

A website associated with Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad claimed on Friday that Obama had ordered Clinton to send a representative to Vienna for another meeting with Iran on the details of the swap proposal within three weeks.

The site said the US aim at the meeting would be to ask Iran to halt the enrichment of uranium to 20%, which had begun in February.

In the conference call Friday, one official emphasized the US complaint that Iran is enriching uranium to 20% to provide fuel for its Tehran research reactor, which is used to make medical isotopes. The official alleged that, after the May 17 agreement, "the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said that even if the deal ... materializes, Iran will continue to enrich at the 20% level..."

But that allegation was based on the interpretation of Ali Akbar Salehi's remarks to Reuters in the lead of the May 17 story. A careful reading of the actual statements quoted in the story support a very different interpretation.

What Salehi said was, ''There is no relationship between the swap deal and our enrichment activities,'' by which he appears to have meant that Iran was not obliged under the swap deal to change its enrichment activities in general.

Salehi also said, "We will continue our 20% enrichment." He did not specify that the enrichment would continue even after an agreement was reached to provide fuel rods for the Tehran reactor.
In another case of apparent misinterpretation, the Washington Post quoted Ramin Mehmanparast, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, as saying on May 17, "Of course, enrichment of uranium to 20% will continue inside Iran."

But the IRNA English language story says, "Talking to reporters, Mehmanparast said that of course, Iran will continue 20% enrichment in the duration." The context of the remark was the announcement by Mehmanparast that Iran would "ship fuel to Turkey in a month in case of the Vienna group readiness and conclusion of a deal between Iran and the group". The phrase "in the duration" thus appeared to refer to the period up to such a deal.

In February, when the enrichment to 20% began, Salehi and other Iranian officials clearly stated that the enrichment would stop if and when the fuel rods were supplied.

The more ambiguous statements by Salehi and Mehmanparast after Iran's agreement to the original US-IAEA swap proposal suggest a desire to force the Obama administration to negotiate with Iran over the issue of when that enrichment would end.

State Department spokesman Philip Crowley asserted on May 20 that the United States would not negotiate further with Iran unless Iran first agreed to discuss suspension of all enrichment activities.

The diplomatic maneuvering of the past week suggests, however, that the Obama administration may be forced to meet with Iran without any promise to talk about a general suspension of enrichment.

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing in US national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in 2006.

(Inter Press Service)

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