Iran-UN talks fail yet again

Iran-UN talks fail yet again

The Peninsula - 15 February, 2013

UN inspectors returned yesterday from talks in Tehran with no deal on access to Iran’s nuclear sites and no date for new talks, failing to produce even a small signal of hope for wider big power diplomacy aimed at averting a war.

“Despite its many commitments to do so, Iran has not negotiated in good faith,” said a Western diplomat accredited to the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna who was not at the talks. “It appears that we now have to ask ourselves if this is still the right tactic.”

The deadlock is a chilling signal for a wider effort by six major powers to get Iran to curb a programme that they fear could give it the capacity to build a nuclear bomb, something Israel has suggested it will prevent by force if diplomacy fails.

The IAEA and Iran “could not finalise the document” setting out terms for an IAEA inquiry into possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear programme, chief UN inspector Herman Nackaerts said at Vienna airport after returning from Iran.

He said no new date had been set for talks that have shown no progress in more than a year, adding: “Time is needed to reflect on the way forward.”

The United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany are due to meet Iran for separate talks in Kazakhstan on February 26 to tackle a decade-old row that has already produced four rounds of UN sanctions against Iran.

But the Islamic Republic, which denies any military dimension to its work and is asking for acknowledgement that it is entitled to produce nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes, is heading for a presidential election in June.

That fact alone makes it hard for any official to be seen to make concessions to foreign powers, let alone ones that suit Iran’s enemies, the United States and Israel, which is widely assumed to be the Middle East’s only nuclear-armed power.

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Iran’s Nuclear-Technology Gains Suggest Sanctions Are Backfiring


By Jonathan Tirone - Feb 15, 2013
International sanctions designed to punish Iran for its nuclear program may be counter-productive, said scientists and security analysts tracking the decade-long dispute over the Persian Gulf nation’s atomic work.
While trade and financial sanctions have choked off Iran’s access to materials such as aluminum and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] used to make its first generation of nuclear equipment, they have spurred the Islamic Republic to find its own solutions for subsequent technological innovations. Now, Iran is positioned to both build better nuclear devices and export them.
“The serious consequence of all of these sanctions are that you drive the indigenous production of these parts,” Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress, a physicist at the Monterrey, California- based James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, wrote in response to questions. “This means the proliferator learns more about the technology and so now they don’t only know how to produce the parts, but they could also sell them to other states.”
As embargoes strangle Iran’s ability to import high-quality metals and fibers needed to build nuclear components, the country’s own resources, including oil, sand and zinc, mean it can overcome technical hurdles. Last month, Iran notified United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors it would begin installing 3,000 domestically built centrifuges that can produce more enriched uranium in less time.
Raw Materials

“Most technologies in use are decades-old, well-proven, well-published concepts,” said Andreas Persbo, executive director of the London-based Verification Research, Training and Information Center, a non-governmental observer to the IAEA. “The key thing is to get access to the raw material. If you have the raw material, and a talent base to process them, you can construct whatever you need.”
Iran, with the world’s fourth-biggest proven oil reserves, began in 2011 to make its own carbon fiber, the strong, light material used in wind turbines, airplanes and centrifuges. Like the uranium-enrichment market, which is led by a handful of companies such as Urenco Ltd., [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and Rosatom Corp., carbon-fiber production is driven by a few multinational businesses including [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
“While the sanctions regime certainly slowed down Iran’s technological progress initially, it has also made Iran self- sufficient in a number of key areas,” said Yousaf Butt, a physicist and nuclear non-proliferation analyst who advised the U.S. National Academy of Sciences on Iran’s nuclear work. “Iran is likely the most technologically advanced nation in the Middle East, aside from Israel.”
Self-Sufficient

The Islamic Republic has also achieved self-sufficiency in other vital technology areas touched by sanctions. The country manufacturers and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] oil, a lubricant used inside centrifuges, on world markets. At a September IAEA meeting in Vienna, Iran displayed a copy of a domestically made nuclear- fuel panel destined for a research reactor in Tehran.
“If in the past the country needed finished products and technologies for its program which squarely fell under sanctions, now the required level of imported inputs is continuously going down to more simple and basic items which Iran still needs but can upgrade on its own,” according to [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], the Soviet Union’s former arms-control envoy to the U.S. who is now at the Athens, Georgia-based Center for International Trade and Security.
Kazakhstan Meeting

Iran, which maintains its atomic program is peaceful, has ruled out suspending its activities as the UN Security Council demands. It’s willing to discuss its nuclear work when it meets world powers in Kazakhstan next week, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said Feb. 4. Talks between Iran and IAEA officials that concluded Feb. 13 in Tehran failed to clinch a deal that would give investigators wider access to alleged nuclear sites.
While Iran allowed wider access to sites, including centrifuge-manufacturing workshops, until 2005, it reversed course after accusations about its nuclear work escalated. The first UN sanctions were imposed in 2006. The country hasn't restricted IAEA access to sites it’s legally bound to let inspectors visit.
Diplomats should focus on returning to greater transparency of Iran’s nuclear facilities rather than trying to enforce a ban on enrichment, said [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], executive director of the London-based British American Security Information Council, a policy-advisory group.
“Iran has a sophisticated economy relative to most states outside of North America, Europe and the Far East, so it should be no surprise that they can develop the technologies to substitute for sanctioned materials,” Ingram wrote in reply to questions. “The experience of sanctions proves this time and time again.”
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Iran nuclear

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The Iranian nuclear program is a contentious and closely monitored issue in international politics. The Tehran government has rapidly advanced its nuclear program over the past decade, which it claims is for peaceful civilian purposes. But the international community, led by Western nations, believe the program is designed to create nuclear weapons.
Iran has stressed in the past that it is a signatory state to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and that it has the right to enrich uranium for civil uses. In an effort to use diplomatic means to deal with the Iran nuclear issue, the United States and its allies have offered incentive-based packages to persuade the Iranian regime to abandon its nuclear program. But continual defiance and the revelation of secret enrichment facilities in Iran have hampered these efforts.


In reaction to Iran’s insubordination, the U.S., Israel and the European Union have launched a series of increasingly stringent sanctions against the Iran nuclear program and those controlling it, to which the Tehran government has responded with defiance, and vows to punish those behind the measures.
The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran brought to power a theocratic Islamic Republic governed by Shi'ite Muslim clerics. In the 1990s, Iran’s nuclear program was fully revived and in 2002, following revelations of clandestine research into fuel enrichment, the Iran nuclear program became a concern the international community could no longer avoid.
The West fears Iran’s nuclear program will be used to produce weapons of mass destruction and refers to the nation’s use of rhetoric against the U.S. and Israel in particular to support the claim. After the withdrawal of American support for Iran’s nuclear program in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution, the Iranian government began receiving assistance from Pakistan’s nuclear scientist, AQ Khan. Following the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, the Iranian nuclear program was given a high degree of importance by the country's new Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. Unlike his predecessor, Khamenei holds a more favorable view of nuclear energy and military technology, both of which can be achieved by advancing the Iran nuclear program.
During the administration of President George W. Bush, the Iran nuclear program became a priority and efforts were made to curtail Tehran’s efforts to enrich uranium through several United Nations Security Council resolutions. In December 2006, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1737, which urged all UN member states “to prevent the supply, sale or transfer” of any goods to Iran that could be used to further its nuclear program. The following year, the UN Security Council passed another resolution blacklisting financial institutions used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the government body suspected of controlling the Iran nuclear program.
Although the UN resolutions have tried to bring an end to Iran’s nuclear program, they have largely been seen as unsuccessful, and Iran continues to defy international demands. Iran’s escalation of threats against its Middle Eastern neighbor Israel, and its support for Palestinian and Lebanese terror groups have led the Israeli government on a campaign to expose Iran’s military plans for its nuclear ambitions.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN body that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy, has reported that Iran is using its centrifuges to enrich uranium, which could be upgraded and enriched to a level for military use. Revelations in September 2009 of a secret second uranium enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom intensified the mistrust over Iran's nuclear ambitions and paved the way for more sanctions.
Demands for stronger sanctions came again in early February 2010 when Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, announced that his country had rejected a package deal with the West to send its uranium abroad, which would then be returned as fuel rods. These demands resulted in a further round of sanctions on Tehran, including tighter financial curbs and an expanded arms embargo, but were not the crippling sanctions the U.S. and Israel were seeking.
In June 2010, the UN approved a new round of sanctions on Iran, which were augmented in a month later by further stricter steps against the Iranian banking system, implemented by the U.S. and the European Union.
For its part, Iran still maintains that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes, and says that it is enriching uranium to 20 percent purity, not the 90 percent level required for nuclear weapons.
The West is continuing to use all diplomatic means necessary in order to curtail the Iran nuclear program. But both the United States and Israel have stated that military strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities are still on the table.

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