| Ander Nieuws week 4 / nieuwe oorlog 2006 |
Russia has suggested a deal involving the 'semi-referral' of Tehran's nuke program to the U.N. The question now is whether the proposal is a delaying tactic or a genuine compromise.
Newsweek
January 18, 2006
By Michael Hirsh
Until now, Russia has resisted efforts by the Europeans and Americans to bring the Iranian nuclear issue before the United Nations Security Council. But in recent days Moscow has proposed a compromise that would allow the escalating confrontation to be referred to the Security Council in a two-stage process, Javier Solana, the foreign policy chief for the European Union, told NEWSWEEK in an interview today.
In contrast to the unified European-American position, which demands a swift referral and possible vote on sanctions against Iran, the Russian proposal calls for two separate Security Council meetings to be scheduled. The Russians are asking that the International Atomic Energy Agency board of governors, at a planned Feb. 2 emergency meeting, hold a vote on referring the Iran nuclear issue to the U.N. Security Council, but initially only for debate and consultation with IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei.
Moscow then wants the issue referred back to the IAEA Board of Governors for a second vote. If the Iranians are still refusing to comply with an agreement to suspend their nuclear program, the matter would be sent it back to the Security Council, presumably for sanctions.
Solana—who spoke to NEWSWEEK shortly before meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington—called the Russian proposal a “semi-referral to the United Nations.” He added that that the Americans and Europeans were still united in pushing for a single Security Council session but that Moscow's plan might be acceptable. “We have to have a guarantee that the matter would be referred back to the Security Council” a second time, he said. Meanwhile Britain, Germany and France, the so-called EU-3, circulated a separate draft resolution Wednesday calling for the board of governors to bring the nuclear issue immediately to the Security Council.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, asked about the Russian proposal, would not comment directly. "We know we have the votes to go to the Security Council and other questions are a matter for ongoing diplomacy and discussion," he said.
The Russians are seeking two separate Security Council sessions in an apparent bid to gain more time to persuade the Iranians to agree on a compromise proposal to conduct uranium enrichment in Russia, under Moscow's supervision. Even the Americans have expressed conditional approval of the Russian enrichment plan, which might provide a way to ensure that Iranian enriched uranium is not used for nuclear bombs.
The plan for double Security Council sessions was proposed in Moscow by Russian President Vladimir Putin to visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday. It was repeated in a meeting of the permanent, veto-bearing members of the Security Council—the United States, Russia, France, Britain and China—in London that same day.
The meeting came after Tehran broke the seals on its Natanz uranium research facility last week in defiance of a two-and-a-half-year-old freeze negotiated with the EU-3. “The Russians and Chinese agree with us that a red line has been crossed” said a European diplomat who is involved in the talks. “But we don't agree on anything else.”
Russia has an extensive trade relationship with Iran and is the main supplier of its civilian nuclear program, which Tehran insists is only for energy purposes. Moscow is also selling air-defense missiles to Tehran. Some Western officials expressed a concern that Russia, seeking to protect those commercial and strategic interests, is simply trying to string out the nuclear talks so that no sanctions can be applied.
One Western diplomat who is leery of the Russian proposal said that Iran shares the same goal of endlessly drawing out the talks. That's one reason Tehran again proposed new talks with the EU-3 this week, he believes. “It's two steps forward, one step back,” said the Western diplomat, who declined to be further identified. “They want the negotiation option to remain. They want to split the coalition here so it's the P2 versus the P3”—in other words, two of the permanent Security Council members, Russia and China, versus the three other permanent members, the United States, France and Britain.
Even so, Moscow may have reason to think that its plans both for a two-stage U.N. referral and a Russian-based enrichment program could become an acceptable middle ground. Two senior-level Iranian officials, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, and chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, have both indicated in recent days that the enrichment plan was worth discussing, even as other Iranian hardliners have insisted on the nation's right to enrichment on its own soil. In a phone call Friday, Larijani also told ElBaradei that Iran is determined to realize its nuclear goals "in the framework of international regulations and under the supervision of the IAEA."
What this means is that, with talks over Iran's nuclear ambitions moving into what Rice calls a “new diplomatic phase,” the key players may no longer be the Europeans and the Americans. They are now the Russians and the Chinese, which have the power to put real teeth into the isolation policy that the Europeans and Americans seek to impose on Tehran.
To a certain degree, the threat of long-term diplomatic isolation of Iran has now become the West's central strategy, and the threat of sanctions has become secondary. In part that is because of Russian and Chinese resistance to sanctions. But it is also because the Europeans and Americans can't decide on what kind of sanctions might be applied. Some Western officials fear that if the West and Japan withhold oil and gas technology—a possible sanction that could affect Iran's still-second-rate energy sector—China would end up reaping the benefit.
The Russian proposal for a first round of debate and consultation at the Security Council, if accepted by all sides, could also be a way of tempering Iran's threat to end all voluntary cooperation with the IAEA if the nuclear issue is referred to the U.N.
Iran, meanwhile, has not gone further than breaking the seals at Natanz, intelligence and IAEA officials say. It has not begun even small-scale enrichment. ElBaradei, in an interview with NEWSWEEK last week, indicated that the final deadline for Iranian compliance is March 6. On that date, at a regularly scheduled IAEA Board of Governors meeting, he will deliver a report on whether he believes Iran's program is peaceful or not.
In some ways, the Russian proposal echoes the late stages of negotiation over the Iraq war, when France and Germany—who were then on the same side as the Russians—sought to have a second Security Council vote on Saddam Hussein's noncompliance, while the Bush administration insisted that one vote was enough. This time, France and Germany are standing firm with Washington, and the Russians and Chinese are pushing for a more prolonged process.
Until now, the Americans have resisted any delays in sending the Iran matter to the Security Council. Washington had originally wanted an emergency IAEA meeting this week, and immediate referral to the Security Council, but was forced by the EU-3 to wait for Feb. 2. Even so, the harder-line Americans still have some wiggle room, because both Russia and China have indicated they are unlikely to veto sanctions if and when the issue does come before the Security Council.
© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.
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