Iran's leadership is ready to limit its nuclear programme but will not suspend uranium enrichment as a precondition for talks, two regime insiders have told the Financial Times.
Tehran is set to make a counterproposal within the next two weeks in response to a package of incentives – including light-water reactors and trade concessions – offered earlier this month by the five permanent members of the UN security council and Germany (P5) as a way to persuade Iran to curb its nuclear programme.
The regime insiders told the FT that Iran will offer talks without preconditions, and is hoping Russia and China will not insist Iran first suspends enrichment, a condition that has been stressed by all six members of the P5 including Moscow and Beijing.
Russia and China have however previously ruled out the adoption of sanctions to deal with the issue.
"The leadership can't be sure how Russia and China will react, but are confident they won't reject this outright," said the first insider.
The insider claimed tension was being eased by indirect contact with Washington through Saudi Arabia. Saudi officials last week reported a mood in Tehran favouring negotiations after Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, met Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, in Tehran, and on Friday Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, spoke of "positive statements" from Iran.
The main demand by the US and the European Union is that Iran suspend uranium enrichment, which they suspect is intended to help develop nuclear weapons, as a precondition for talks.
The process can produce both fuel and weapons-grade material. Tehran insists its purposes are peaceful.
Both insiders stressed Tehran could not suspend enrichment because of domestic politics and did not feel under enough international pressure to act.
Ayatollah Khamenei, pre-eminent in a collective leadership group that takes key decisions, seemed to rule out suspension last Thursday when he insisted Iran would "not bend to pressure".
The leadership was still assessing Washington's decision to offer to join direct talks with Iran, the insiders said, weighing up whether it was a tactical manouevre to help isolate Tehran from Russia and China if it rejected the package.
"The situation remains very delicate," explained one of the insiders. "The P5+1 package was weak and Ayatollah Khamenei found it disappointing."
But Ayatollah Khamenei was persuaded to sanction a conditional welcome, he said, by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president, Ali Larijani, the top security official, and Hassan Rowhani, the former top security official and an adviser to Ayatollah Khamenei.
"Now I'm optimistic," he added, "if we can first find a way to overcome the problem of enrichment."
Both insiders said a majority in the leadership would, once talks developed, accept a compromise over the nuclear programme that allowed it to keep some uranium enrichment in Iran.
"Around 70 per cent of senior people may be prepared, under pressure, to accept an eventual limit on the number of centrifuges [for enriching uranium] to hundreds or thousands," said the first, adding that Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, Iran's president, was in the minority.
"The west's package accepts Iran's right to nuclear energy – so the next step is that the west accepts enrichment and drops the big fuss," he said.
One of the insiders said Iran might settle for a limit as low as three cascades of 164 centrifuges, with the vast bulk of uranium for its planned nuclear reactors enriched in Russia, as Moscow first proposed last year.
He said this could give the west "objective guarantees" on the peaceful nature of Iran's atomic programme while Iran continued to convert raw uranium into feeder gas at its Isfahan plant: "So the outcome would be the European package plus the Russia proposal, and six or seven years of confidence-building on both sides."
<http://accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=1295> Iranian Peace Offers June 19, 2006
Sunday's Financial Times story "Iran 'Ready To Limit Nuclear Programme'" reports that "Iran's leadership is ready to limit its nuclear programme but will not suspend uranium enrichment as a precondition for talks, two regime insiders have told the Financial Times." Full article <http://www.ft.com/cms/s/4a72adca-feef-11da-84f3-0000779e2340.html>
Also on Sunday, the Washington Post reported -- under the headline "In 2003, U.S. Spurned Iran's Offer of Dialogue; Some Officials Lament Lost Opportunity" -- about a "proposal from Iran for a broad dialogue with the United States," which "suggested everything was on the table -- including full cooperation on nuclear programs, acceptance of Israel and the termination of Iranian support for Palestinian militant groups."
In response to this, the Post reports, the administration "formally complained to the Swiss ambassador who had sent the fax [proposal] with a cover letter certifying it as a genuine proposal supported by key power centers in Iran, former administration officials said." Full article <http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/3979610.html>
TRITA PARSI <tparsi at jhu.edu> Mideast specialist Parsi was cited in the Post article as having received a copy of the 2003 Iranian proposal. He said today: "Very few people would have guessed that Iran would have made such offers. This highlights the importance of the two sides getting to the negotiating table without any delay since a negotiated settlement is achievable." Parsi is author of the book Treacherous Triangle: The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States. More Information <http://www.tritaparsi.com/>
GARETH PORTER <garethporter at erols.com> Porter wrote the article "Iran Proposal to U.S. Offered Peace with Israel" and several other pieces over the last several months on the offer from Iran. He can also comment on the 2003 Iranian proposal, the Financial Times report and other developments regarding Iran. More Information <http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=33348>
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
-- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>