The PowerPoint slides were published last week by the Fars news agency. While Fars is not an organ of the state and has often published erroneous stories, the fact that the government has not denied the text printed by Fars in the days since publication demonstrates its accuracy.
The presentation is written in slovenly English, which adds to confusion about the proposal. There are many superb English writers in Iran, and the regime often uses them to draft English versions of speeches. But when it comes to very sensitive official documents, officials with a middling knowledge of English prefer to do the crafting themselves.
In this PowerPoint, for example, Iran proposes in garbled English that the seven nations around the table “commit themselves … to obligate to the rights and obligations envisaged in the NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty]. Therefore, no agreement shall and can undermine NPT’s rights and obligation, or interpreted in a way that it either restricts or spoils them.”
The full text of the first part of the PowerPoint presentation is published in the accompanying box. The second and third parts are not included because they are not a proposal but rather a lawyer’s brief defending Iran’s right to enrich (Part Two) and to keep open its enrichment site at Fordo (Part Three).
That brief would not likely pass muster in any court since it completely ignores and fails to address the key point made by the Islamic Republic’s critics. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has repeatedly said that Iran has lost its right to enrich under the NPT by violating its safeguard agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has found Iran guilty of 16 violations. Iran’s PowerPoint is silent on that criticism.
The meat of the Iranian proposal is contained in four steps for addressing the nuclear issue.
Under Step One, the Big Six are to announce that Iran has the right to enrich while Iran will announce that it opposes nuclear weapons. In other words, the Big Six will do something it has refused to do while Iran will repeat what it has already said many times.
In Step Two, the US and EU will terminate all their sanctions while Iran “will continue its broad cooperation with the IAEA … as before.” In other words, all non-UN sanctions will end in exchange for Iran working with the IAEA “as before,” which is the crux of the Big Six complaint about Iran.
In Step Three, the UN sanctions will be ended and the Iran issue removed from the UN Security Council agenda while Iran “will cooperate with [the Big Six] to provide enriched fuel” for the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR), which requires 20 percent enrichment. In other words, the last sanctions will be dropped in exchange for Iran getting the fuel it wants.
In Step Four, the Big Six will help Iran design and build nuclear power plants while Iran will help the West with light water research reactors, nuclear safety and nuclear fusion!
In essence, the proposal is for the phased elimination of sanctions in exchange for no change in Iranian policy. However, reading between the lines, Iran is hinting (in Step Three) that it may be willing to drop its 20 percent enrichment. But that is all it is dangling before the Big Six. And it phrases that in such vague terms that Tehran can easily deny it has made any such offer—viz., “Iran will cooperate with 5+1 to provide enriched fuel needed for TRR.” That does not say Iran will end 20 percent enrichment; it only implies that.
The Moscow meeting, at which this PowerPoint was presented, ended last month with no agreement except to schedule a lower level “experts” meeting. That meeting was held in Istanbul last Tuesday and extended into the wee hours of Wednesday morning. It ended with no agreement except that Ali Bagheri, deputy to chief Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili, will meet July 24 in Istanbul with Helga Schmid, deputy to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.
One diplomat said last week’s meeting “was intended to get more clarity about each other’s positions. I think that worked well…. In the late hours, a real discussion in a form of questions and answers developed. Our task was not to bring positions any closer, but to better understand it.”
David Hartwell of IHS Jane’s looked at that and told Reuters: “It doesn’t really indicate that a deal is particularly close at all. But at the same time, maybe both sides have concluded that—at least for the foreseeable future—it is better to keep talking than to sever contact altogether.”
Meanwhile, Russia held firm on the right-to-enrich issue. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said in Moscow, “The right to enrich and recognition of this right must come in exchange for the Iranian nuclear program coming under comprehensive international control.”