US, EU edge closer to recognizing Iran's nuclear rights
Iran-USA, Politics, 6/7/2006

The US and EU have started saying mixed statements, in which on the one hand, they are willing to recognize Iran's rights to make nuclear fuel on its own land, yet, on the other hand, continue to want Iran to stop ongoing nuclear fuel.

The US and EU want the suspension until, according to them, Iran is verified as not wanting to develop nuclear weapons.

The US has says it has fears that skills developed for civil nuclear fuel, can be turned around, if Iran desires, to making nuclear weapons. Iran says that it cannot be prevented from its rights to development based on speculative fears. Iran's success in enriching Uranium at the level of about 5% purity needed for electricity generating nuclear reactors is far bellow what is said to be needed of purity of 90% (90% according to Washington Post and New York Times reports) for a nuclear weapons grade material.

The US sees Iran having possibly 3000 centrifuges operational by year end to make fuel, and the US is trying to prevent this from taking place. With the US wanting to negotiate with Iran, It is possible that the US maybe looking for only the 164 centrifuges currently operating to continue operations. Germany seems to desire this position, with the LA Times reporting yesterday that "Germany had suggested that Iran could be allowed to continue, under strict UN monitoring, its current enrichment research while negotiations commenced." However, in an apparent change of position, The Washington Post reported today that Germany's Prime Minister Angela Merkel today placed the condition that fuel making must stop before negotiations can start.

The EU offer given to Iran included incentives to Iran in commercial, technological and technical fields as well as security guarantees, dispatch of the US-made aircraft parts and agricultural technologies. A decision to sell aircraft parts by Boeing and Airbus to Iran was regarded as a major step to lift sanctions against Tehran. Washington imposed sanctions against Iran since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979 which prevented sale of parts of military and non-military aircraft. The sanctions were imposed not only on the US-made aircraft but even on European planes such as Airbus whose some parts are being made in the US.

While the EU and US shift to acknowledge Iran's rights to make its own fuel is a public announcement, the added conditions they are placing, as the Iranians had previously said, are imposition of conditions on Iran for stopping temporarily the program, with the hope that the program would be stopped permanently. Iran has said that doing so in the past was a big mistake and very harmful to Iran, and it would not do it again.

A Los Angeles Times report said "'It's unlikely they are going to give on that,' a European diplomat in Vienna said, noting that the last time Iran halted its centrifuge operation, a number of the delicate machines broke."

Iranian officials have been emphatic in saying the program would not be suspended even for "a single moment," and the decision to continue fuel making is "irreversible."

An Iranian official had said about the new offer as having "ambiguities that have to be cleared."

Iran insists it wants nothing more than its rights, which means the rights to industrial level production and skills in making fuel, and not to having to be forced to get or buy the fuel from other countries. Iran said it had to rely on its own resources, during may years of sanctions against it, and that foreign countries are not reliable. Even the international Atomic Energy Agency had failed to do its job to help Iran develop its skills. Iran was forced to develop these skills by itself, with the agency acting more of hindrance instead of the role it is supposed to play in helping countries develop civil nuclear capabilities, no matter how much others may dislike Iran having those capabilities, the Iranians had said.

While the US acknowledgment of Iran's rights to make fuel on its land is a concession, Iran has been categorical in rejecting a halt to its program under different pretexts, seeing the US and EU requests as a stalling tactic.

Commenting today, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani recommended the US to revise their former approach to prepare the grounds for talks.

In an interview with the Swedish daily, Svenska Dagblat, he referred to the US past blunders and said that if they revise their attitude, there will be no obstacle to holding talks with Iran. "The US should first select the way, given that we are on the threshold of making an important decision. There are two choices and paths. "One way for the US is to continue the path it has selected and use the international bodies as tools of power, which will make Iran respond in a similar way. Then holding talks will make no sense," he added.

Larijani said that the second choice will be adopting a reasonable approach and as the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said, they should accept their past mistakes. It was not clear if his remarks was a reference to the US support to Iraq's president Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran in the 1980s.

In response to the question whether Iran is interested in holding talks with the US, the Larijani said that the talks themselves have no particular value, given that they may end up either in negative or positive results.

Reacting to the US continued insistence on claiming not to leave any options off the table in its interaction with Iran, which is seen as a US implicit military threat against Iran, the Iranians have rejected this attitude. In reply to a question on whether Iran considers Washington's "rude" tone towards Tehran similar to that used prior to the US involvement in war with Iraq, he said that exchange of ideas does not make much sense. "We have been living with such remarks for the past 28 years, without ever being influenced by them. I believe that the global peace will be maintained even without such words. The intellectuals should rather present strategic plans for promotion of peace," he added. Larijani said that today most politicians and diplomats do not give much importance to such remarks.

Previous Stories:
  European nuclear proposal handed to Iran   (6/6/2006)
  Ahmadi-Nejad on responding to nuclear offer   (6/5/2006)
  Ahmadi-Nejad on responding to nuclear offer   (6/5/2006)
  Iran's leader: US wrong move would endanger oil   (6/5/2006)
  US, EU to offer better package to Iran on nuclear issue   (6/2/2006)
  Iran will not accept limited uranium enrichment   (5/30/2006)

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