French, British and German officials are due to meet Iranian negotiators on Wednesday to discuss a European proposal that Teheran scrap its uranium enrichment programme in exchange for nuclear technology. The two sides met to discuss the offer last week, but that meeting ended only with an agreement to continue talks. | And they'll talk, and talk, and talk, and ... |
If Iran rejects the European Union offer, diplomats say most European nations except for the French, of course will back US demands that Teheran be reported to the UN Security Council for possible economic sanctions when the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) governing board meets in November. Iran's top security official, Hassan Rohani, indicated on Monday that Teheran might agree to the first part of the EU trio's deal - an indefinite freeze on uranium enrichment activities. Once that suspension is in place, the EU trio has pledged to negotiate a full solution, which could include help with Iran's civilian nuclear technology and a trade deal in return for scrapping nuclear fuel cycle activities for good. | Yasss, the Kerry-Edwards plan! |
But Hossein Mousavian, one of Iran's top nuclear negotiators, said on Tuesday: "We will not have any new offer at Wednesday's meeting but ... we will discuss the European proposal's ambiguities." One European diplomat said there was concern Iran may agree to freeze enrichment and then drag out talks to buy time and ease political pressure as it did in a similar 2003 deal. | And it worked so well last time, too. |
Iran last year agreed to temporarily halt all activities linked to uranium enrichment, a process that can produce bomb-grade material, and signed up to snap inspections of its nuclear facilities in a bid to counter US-led charges that it has a covert nuclear arms programme. Teheran's suspension of enrichment itself has remained in place but it has resumed making and assembling centrifuges, the machines that enrich uranium. It has also said it plans to convert 37 tonnes of raw uranium into the feed material for centrifuges. The IAEA, at its last board meeting in September, called on Iran to halt all such activities. | You guys, c'mon now, please? |
Hardline Iranian lawmakers, who control a majority in Iran's parliament, on Tuesday introduced a bill that would oblige the government to resume enrichment and halt snap inspections. Government officials have said they would have no choice but to obey such a bill if enacted but diplomats said Iran was using it as a bargaining tool ahead of Wednesday's talks. | "Sorry Jacques, Tony, Gerhard, but they forced my hand!" |
Meanwhile, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) -- the political wing of the exiled group known as the People's Mujahideen Organisation (MKO) -- was angered by a section of the document outlining the EU trio's offer which said the EU would "continue to regard the MKO as a terrorist organisation" if Iran complied with the terms of the offer. The NCRI said the issue of whether or not the MKO was a terrorist organisation had nothing to do with Iran's willingness to accept the offer and should be left out of the deal. An NCRI spokesman said the group was planning a protest demonstration in Vienna on Wednesday. | Unless the Euro police stop them, of course. |
The NCRI sparked the investigation of Iran's nuclear programme when it said in August 2002 that Iran was hiding a massive underground uranium enrichment site at Natanz and a heavy-water production plant at Arak. |