The agreement was definitive, but it was an agreement on process, not substance.
The outcome is certain to prompt many Israelis as well as Americans and others to say this just proves that the Islamic Republic is pursuing a strategy of perpetual delay—holding out the carrot of eventual agreement, but always holding out the carrot while never providing any substantive agreement.
Both Iran and the IAEA painted the two days of talks in positive terms.
IAEA Deputy Director General Herman Nackaerts, who led the IAEA team, said, “We had a good exchange of views and we will meet again on Monday.”
Ambassador Ali-Asghar Soltanieh, who led the Iranian team, said, “We had fruitful discussions in a very conducive environment…. We decided that, in order to continue this work towards conclusion, we will have next week … the next round of talks.” Note that Soltanieh did not say the upcoming talks would be the final round, only the “next” round.
IAEA officials have long made clear that they require access to people, documents and sites in Iran to answer the agency’s questions about aspects of Iran’s nuclear program that appear to have military dimensions. At the beginning of the year, the IAEA focused on getting access to one building on the Parchin military base south of Tehran where Iran is suspected of conducting work on nuclear triggers.
At an Iran-IAEA meeting in January, the Iranian negotiators reportedly said they would have to try to convince the Iranian military to allow access. The two sides next met in February, but the IAEA request was not fulfilled. In subsequent weeks, IAEA officials continued to say that access to Parchin was essential if there was to be any chance for the IAEA to begin to get to the bottom of issues. Access to Parchin was presented as the opportunity for Iran to prove that it had changed and wasn’t just dangling the carrot again.
But no such access was granted in the meetings Monday or Tuesday.
Iranian officials had indicated they wished to use the meetings to lay out a process and timeline for addressing all the IAEA’s remaining questions. That was exactly what was done a few years ago. They negotiated an outline with the IAEA under which the IAEA would offer its questions on the first issue by a certain date and Iran would reply by a certain date, then the IAEA would pose its questions on the second issue by a certain date and Iran would reply by a certain date, and so on. Iran did provide replies, which the IAEA often found inadequate or which prompted more questions. But when the IAEA tried to follow up, Iran replied that it had already answered those questions.
The next Iran-IAEA talks will be Monday, May 21. Then Iran is to sit down May 23 with the Big Six powers for further talks. Those talks began nine years ago in 2003 as talks between Iran and the major European powers: Germany, Britain and France. They have since expanded to include the United States, Russia and China. In nine years, one agreement has been reached—for Iran to halt enrichment. And that agreement was rescinded by Iran after a year. The net product of nine years of talks has been zero.
In recent days, Iranian officials have been lining up at the microphones in Tehran to say that the goal of the talks with the Big Six is to end sanctions—although Iranian officials continue to insist that the sanctions are ineffective. The Iranian public might want to ask why the government is making something its says amounts to nothing the focal point of its efforts.
Officials have also been saying the Big Six must use the talks to build Iran’s confidence in those six countries. For example, retired Pasdar Gen. Yadollah Javani said last week, “The Iranian people do not trust the West… Building their confidence will take time and the West needs to rebuild the Iranian people’s trust.” Neither Javani nor anyone else in the Iranian regime has conceded that the Big Six do not trust the Islamic Republic and that some confidence-building must go in the other direction as well.
On Monday, President Ahmadi-nejad pursued one of his popular themes, criticizing the West for bad manners and for being disrespectful of Iran. In the same speech, however, he said the major powers were stupid to build nuclear weapons.
“If the West corrects its manners and respects the Iranian people, in return it will gain the respect of Iranians,” he said. “They should know that the Iranian people will not retreat one step from their fundamental right [to master nuclear science]…. No intelligent human being would spend money on building a nuclear weapon. If the leaders [of the major powers] were intelligent, they would spend their people’s money on improving the lives of their citizens.”