Site icon Iran Times

Iran says it may stop 20% enrichment

The concession suggested that the Islamic Republic is feeling the pinch of new sanctions and fearful of the impact in the coming months.

News reports in the past week have said an end to 20 percent enrichment is the key goal of the Big Six powers as they enter renewed nuclear talks with Iran this weekend.

Most public officials in Iran have been standing their ground firmly in recent days and saying Iran will make no concessions whatsoever to the rest of the world.

The one exception has been Fereydun Abbasi-Davani, the chief of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.  Abbasi-Davani is a nuclear scientist, not a foreign policy official.  There was speculation that he was directed to announce the concession precisely because he is a nuclear scientist and not identified with the much-maligned foreign policy establishment, which is seen as too eager to make concessions.

Abbasi-Davani is also a unique figure because he survived an assassination attempt that is assumed to have been launched by Israel.  A year ago, a motorcyclist stuck a magnetic bomb to the side of Abbasi-Davani’s car and drove off.  Abbasi-Davani heard the bomb being attached and pushed his wife and himself out of the car just before the bomb blew up.

That gives Abbasi-Davani a special standing and makes it harder for hardliners who haven’t put their lives on the line to criticize him, which is presumably why he was chosen to offer a concession to the West,

In a television interview Sunday night, Abbasi-Davani said Iran needed to enrich uranium to 20 percent only in a quantity sufficient to fully fuel the small 5-megawatt Tehran research reactor.  “Once the necessary fuel is obtained, we will scale back production and maybe even limit enrichment to 3.5 percent,” he said.

Abbasi-Davani spoke only hours after The New York Times reported that the Obama Administration and its European allies will make a call for an end to 20 percent enrichment the centerpiece of their proposals at the resumed nuclear talks this weekend.  The newspaper quoted unnamed American and European diplomats as saying the Western countries would also call for the immediate closing of the Fordo enrichment site deep inside a mountain.

The news report said the Western powers will still be calling for an end to all enrichment in Iran, as demanded in the UN Security Council resolutions for the last five years, but will make the end of 20 percent enrichment and the closure of Fordo the goals of this weekend’s talks.  (Many analysts believe the  demand for an end to all enrichment will eventually be dropped by the West, but only after Iran agrees to intrusive inspections to make sure it isn’t cheating.)

Some analysts suggested that the closure of Fordo wouldn’t be important if 20 percent enrichment was halted and thought the Fordo closure might be on the Western demand list so it can conveniently be dropped in a concession to Iran if Iran agrees to halt 20 percent enrichment.

The concern over 20 percent enrichment is paramount—and its is a concern of Russia and China as well as the West.  That is because uranium that has been enriched to 20 percent purity has gone through 97 percent of the work effort to make weapons quality uranium.  With a stock of 20 percent enriched uranium, Iran would be right on the cusp of being able to make the uranium part of a bomb.

Nuclear specialists say the Islamic Republic already has a sufficient stock of 20 percent uranium to fuel the Tehran reactor for years and does not need any more for that purpose.  Iran announced several weeks ago, however, that it will dedicate all 3,000 centrifuges to be installed at Fordo exclusively to enrichment to 20 percent.  Nuclear scientists say that if all the approximately 9,000 centrifuges now installed at Natanz enrich to 3.5 percent and all the 3,000 centrifuges to be installed at Natanz enrich that uranium further to 20 percent, then all the uranium coming out of Natanz will go to Fordo.

In other words, under the announced plans Iran would not be keeping any uranium at 3.5 percent to fuel nuclear power reactors, although that is what Iran has long claimed is the purpose of its nuclear program.

The boxed story on this page explains why 20 percent enrichment is so close to weapons-grade and so irksome to the major powers.

Abbasi-Davani couched his talk about halting 20 percent enrichment in tough language spoken as if it were aimed at the West but which really appeared to be aimed at mollifying Iran’s hardliners.  He said Iran won’t accept any Western offer to provide Iran with 20 percent enriched uranium.

“The Islamic Republic won’t turn back and has no interest in receiving 20 percent fuel from other countries because it has made an investment [in making 20 percent fuel],” Abbasi-Davani said in the televised interview.  “We made the investment because they [the West] blocked us [by refusing to sell Iran 20 percent fuel].”

Then he said Iran could halt the production of 20 percent fuel once it had enough for the Tehran reactor.  He avoided saying when that would be although Western analysts have said it already has enough such fuel to keep the Tehran reactor going for several years.

Abbasi-Davani presented the halt to 20 percent enrichment as a unilateral decision by Iran, not as an offer to the West, but simply as a business decision by Iran.  However, few doubt that Iran would demand Western concessions in exchange for a halt to 20 percent enrichment.  While Abbasi-Davani did not address that point, few doubt that Iran wants a halt to Western sanctions in exchange.

The Big Six powers—China, Russia, Germany, France, Britain and the United States—will likely be willing to discuss some modification to sanctions in exchange for a halt in 20 percent enrichment.  Russia has publicly proposed a phase-out of sanctions in exchange for Iran phasing out enrichment;  Iran would halt some enrichment and the world would halt some sanctions, with progressively less enrichment and fewer sanctions.

The road to the talks this weekend has been jerky and filled with potholes.  Iran proposed last month that the talks be held in Istanbul.  Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi then announced that Istanbul had been selected.  But within hours, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton announced that no decision on a venue had been made.  A week later, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that agreement had been reached on meeting April 13 in Istanbul.  But Iran then said Istanbul was unacceptable.

In between Iran proposing and rejecting Istanbul, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had visited Tehran.  While Iran said the talks went very well, the fact that Iran then rejected Istanbul as the site for talks was evidence that the Erdogan visit did not go well.

Days after rejecting Istan-bul, the regime once again did a 180-degree turn and accepted Istanbul.  The shift over 10 days from demanding Istanbul, to rejecting Istanbul, to accepting Istanbul was dizzying and did not leave many with much respect for the regime’s decision-making skills.

Exit mobile version