Å forhandle med iranerne er som å spille sjakk med en ape. Du setter dem matt, og så sluker de kongen.
Karakteristikken i ingressen har jeg hentet fra et utsagn til Daily Telegraph fra en diplomat involvert i forhandlingene. Som jeg skrev på mandag, lå det an til at Iran i siste instans ikke ville godta det deres forhandlere øyensynelig hadde gått med på i Wien, men komme tilbake med nye forhandlingsutspill for å dra ut prosessen, slik de har holdt på med i årevis, med god støtte fra IAEAs leder Muhamed ElBaradei. Ikke rart den mannen fikk fredsprisen – han er selve legemliggjøringen av den norske dialoglinjen – endeløse og resultatløse forhandlinger, mens bombeutviklingen pågår rett foran nesen hans.
Og nå har svaret fra Iran kommet, en snau uke på overtid. Selv om detaljene ikke er kjent, er det viktigste at iranerne ikke går med på selve kjernen i avtalen, at mesteparten av landets lavanrikede uran skal sendes ut av landet straks, for så å komme tilbake i den formen Iran påstår de trenger det på et senere tidspunkt. Isteden krever iranerne nå at utvekslingen skjer i små pakker.
Hvorfor er dette viktig? Fordi den opprinnelige avtalen ville sikret at Iran ikke hadde nok anriket uran til å gå videre i produksjonen av en bombe ihvertfall omtrent et år fremover. Det ville skapt et vindu for videre forhandlinger. Det er usikkerhet om iranerne allerede har nok uran til å gå videre med å lage en bombe, eller er svært nær denne mengden. Kanskje har de også flere ukjente anlegg, slik det nylig ble avslørt, som øker kapasiteten ytterligere. Uansett vil en slik gradvis byttehandel mens sentrifugene tikker og går ikke med noen grad av sikkerhet sørge for at Iran ikke kan lage bomben, selve poenget med bytteavtalen.
Jeg gjengir nedenfor noen internasjonale reaksjoner. Legg merke til opposisjonsleder Mousavis sterke avstandstagen til avtalen på slutten. Det er imidlertid et åpent spørsmål hva han faktisk hadde gjort dersom han satt med makten. I dagens situasjon er det viktig for ham å markere avstand til Vestens krav.
Min artikkel om argumentene for å bombe Irans atomanlegg finner dere her.
Daily Telegraph
France said it was still hopeful the original deal would be agreed but it is understood that neither Britain nor France and Germany will accept Iran’s new terms. They believe Iran is trying to use the deal merely as a starting point to draw other countries into another protracted round of talks. During that time they think the Iranians could continue to enrich uranium and conduct more research on the scientific know-how necessary to turn it into a nuclear weapon.
Times, London
Diplomats described Iran’s response as a slap in the face for Mr ElBaradei, who has been seen by the West as being too ready to believe Tehran. (…)
Some reports in Vienna yesterday suggested that Tehran wanted to be allowed to carry out the enrichment inside Iran under the IAEA supervision — a proposal that Western governments will find impossible to accept.
Guardian
If the deal collapses, as seems likely, it would deliver another critical blow to Barack Obama’s policy of engagement, and put international sanctions and Israeli military action back on the table. (…)
“This is completely unacceptable,” said a European diplomat, who said discussions were under way in Brussels tonight to formulate a common response. “They want to keep all the gains and give nothing away,” another diplomat said. (…)
The IAEA issued a cautious statement today calling Iran’s proposals an “initial response”, and adding that the agency’s director, Mohamed ElBaradei, was talking to all parties “with the hope that agreement on his proposal can be reached soon”. (…)
Iran has also backed away from another undertaking made in Geneva, to meet before the end of the month to discuss its continued enrichment of uranium in defiance of UN security council resolutions.
New York Times
A senior European official characterized the Iranian response as “basically a refusal.” The Iranians, he said, want to keep all of their lightly enriched uranium in the country until receiving fuel bought from the West for the reactor in Tehran. “The key issue is that Iran does not agree to export its lightly enriched uranium,” the official said. “That’s not a minor detail. That’s the whole point of the deal.”
ABC News:
“The bottom line of the Vienna was this: suspension of sanctions and war and tensions for a year, for suspension of Iran’s ability to make a bomb,” said Meir Javedanfar, a Middle East analyst based in Israel. “If this is Iran’s official answer it’s going to set back negotiations.”
Washington Post
Not only did Iran appear to reject a central element of the proposed agreement but it also has refused to commit to another high-level diplomatic meeting to discuss the program. (…)
A central element of the plan, conceived by the Obama administration, is that Iran must ship the enriched uranium out of the country in one batch by the end of the year. Instead, the presentation by Iranian Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh suggested that Iran would ship out its uranium in batches, swapping it for new material on a continuous basis, diplomats said. That would negate the main attraction of the proposal for the major powers dealing with Iran, because it would mean its stockpile of enriched uranium would not be significantly reduced. (…)
The strongest criticism has come from Mir Hossein Mousavi, the leading opposition presidential candidate in Iran’s June 12 election. Even though the two-term government of his political partner, former president Mohammad Khatami, tried several times to reach a compromise with the West over Iran’s nuclear program, Mousavi charged that the current proposal would lead to disaster.
“The discussions in Geneva were really surprising, and if the promises given [to the West] are realized, then the hard work of thousands of scientists would be ruined,” the Kaleme Web site quoted Mousavi as saying in reference to the nuclear fuel plan.
Hvem har blitt lurt?