Will the Nuclear Impasse End in Zarif Absence?

As Iranian diplomats leave Tehran for Geneva to participate in next round of nuclear talks with diplomats from the P5+1 world powers, it has been announced that the country’s foreign minister Javad Zarif will only participate in the first introductory session of the meeting, relegating the talks to his number two after that. At the same time, hardline Kayhan newspaper has published harsh attacks on Western and American policies on the talks while Fars news agency has called the continuation of Iran’s uranium enrichment program to be a red line not to be crossed back. And true to form, Israel’s prime minister has taken a negative view over the Tuesday/Wednesday talks.

Iranian diplomats are meeting diplomats from major world powers after a lull of six months, and with great optimism. While Javad Zarif has been announced to be the head of Iran’s delegation to the talks, nobody is certain whether he will participate in the talks themselves, even though he has already met US secretary of state John Kerry and foreign ministers of the other P5+1 members when he was in New York last month to attend the annual UN General Assembly gathering. Iran’s domestic media have written that Zarif will participate in the talks only if the talks are held at the foreign minister level.

The last round of talks were held with much hope and fanfare about seven months ago in Almaty, Kazakhstan, but ultimately nothing emerged from the exchanges. Those talks, known as Almaty-2 were in fact the continuation of the first round of talks – known as Almaty-1 - held in the same city two months earlier, which many expected would break the deadlock in the 8 year diplomatic efforts of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s administration regarding the nuclear dispute. Unofficial news reports over the Almaty-1 talks indicated that the West had changed its posture and had accepted not to press for the dismantlement of the Fardow nuclear plant if Tehran agreed to suspend uranium enrichment to below 20 percent purity. But it appears that this proposal too did not win the approval of the former administration’s negotiations team.

Today, many hope that president Hassan Rowhani will succeed in breaking the decade-old dispute and end the crippling sanctions that have been instituted against Iran in recent years.

Zarif is scheduled to meet EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton for dinner, following his talks with her when he was in New York last month when this week’s round of talks was agreed on. These talks are expected to end on Wednesday.

On the eve of the departure of Iran’s team, Fars news agency, which is known to be closely associated with the Revolutionary Guards, wrote, “Iran’s team, headed by Zarif,  is prepared, serious, has the necessary authority to engage in purposeful negotiations and plans to present a new written proposal based on realistic policies to the P5+1 group.”

Earlier, Rowhani had declared that his government had full authority in talks with Western countries; an authority granted to him by Iran’s supreme leader ayatollah Khamenei. The leader of the Islamic state has traditionally is recognized as the guide for the nuclear program even though the experience of the last ten years indicates that Iranian governments and presidents do have a leeway in effecting Khamenei’s decision.

The US and the West suspect Iran’s nuclear program to have a military component and the expansion of its enrichment activities has resulted in a decade-old dispute. The case has gone to the UN Security Council where a number of resolutions and sanctions have been instituted against Iran, in addition to the unilateral sanctions imposed by the US and some European countries. From early 2012, the US and EU targeted Iran’s oil and financial sectors with sanctions. These coupled with Ahmadinejad administration’s mishandling of the economy have resulted in a serious fall in the value of the country’s official banknote, the Rial, and its oil revenues. Economic conditions have deteriorated to the point that many economists and even officials of the Islamic republic confess it to be worst in the last 30 years.

Differences between ayatollah Khamenei and then president Ahmadinejad over the nuclear policy deepened in the last two years of that administration and in the last four months the chief executive openly said he no longer had any say in the country’s nuclear policy making.

Editorializing on this week’s nuclear talks under the title of “Musts and Must Nots”, Fars news agency wrote, “The red line for the Iranian people in the Geneva talks, or any talks from now on, is the right of uranium enrichment on Iranian soil within the framework of the NPT for the production of energy and other peaceful needs. While aspects of this enrichment can be discussed with the other side, the principle of enrichment is never to be negotiated and under no circumstances should the West be allowed to raise this issue.”

It should be noted that Fars did not mention “20 percent enriched uranium.”

This position appears softer than the one taken by Shariatmadari at state-run Kayhan newspaper. It wrote, “Even though the opponent claims that the ball is now in Iran’s court and that it is Iran that must build confidence and demonstrate complete transparency in its nuclear activities, it wants to impose its conditions outside the talks and the rules of diplomacy.”

Kayhan has been very vocal in recent weeks against any improvement in Tehran-Washington relations, and Rowhani’s diplomacy outreach. The editorial continues, “Experience has shown that the enemy is very determined against Islamic Iran and strives to come to a point that it calls ‘the containment of Iran.’  With this in mind, we can enter the talks in a powerful way and amid the diplomacy and smiles, learn of the tricks and plots of the opponent and see his priority, i.e., the ‘containment of Iran,’ and the prevention of the progress of the Islamic republic, from which it has not retreated fan iota.”