Iranians hold portraits of President Hassan Rouhani as Iran's nuclear delegation returns to Tehran on November 24, 2013. (Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)[/caption]By all accounts, the nuclear deal secured with Iran over the weekend was a close-run thing: The talks were scheduled to last for three days, but an agreement was only reached in the early hours of day five. But after ten years of negotiations, the P5+1—the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China, Russia and Germany—has finally come to a deal with Iran over its nuclear program, albeit only an interim one.
There was a soap opera quality to it all as persistent rumors of the talks’ collapse alternated with premature announcements of an impending agreement. The dozens of journalists camped out in the luxury Geneva hotel hosting the meeting added to the general feeling of exhaustion by tweeting photos of each other strewn, some clearly asleep, across the chairs and sofas that dotted the hotel lobby as negotiations dragged on.
This was the third round of talks (all held in Geneva) since Hassan Rouhani took office in August, and progress has been rapid. The first round, held at the end of October, saw a fresh Iranian negotiating team headed by Iran’s new foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, conduct talks in a hitherto unheard of spirit of cooperation.
Things really began to move at the last round of talks almost two weeks ago. It became clear on the first day that an agreement of some sort was on the table when Zarif chose to stay in Geneva instead of flying to Rome to meet the Italian foreign minister. When US Secretary of State John Kerry interrupted his tour of the Middle East to attend the talks, followed by his counterparts from Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, it became clear that it might be an agreement of substance.
But it wasn’t to be. On the final day, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius pre-empted the official announcement by announcing himself that the parties had failed to agree. Fabius himself was the problem. Wary of signing what he called a “Fool’s deal,” he expressed concern over the status of Iran’s Arak heavy water plant, which it could conceivably use to produce weapons-grade plutonium. He was also worried by Iran’s supposed refusal to secure its stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 percent.
That it was France, and not the US or Iran, that prevented a deal was frustrating but heartening. If the two central actors in this drama could meet and largely agree—and it seems that they did—then a solution was not only possible, it was close.
So the question coming into these talks was whether the deal could finally be made. The proposal at issue was a short-term agreement to slow down elements of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for limited sanctions relief. There were serious points of disagreement, not least because both sides were under considerable pressure.
Rouhani needed to mollify hardliners in the largely conservative Iranian parliament, which he did by stressing that uranium enrichment was a “red line” for Iran, which would not bow “to any threat, sanction, humiliation or discrimination.” President Obama was just as eager to reassure the US Congress, which threatened more sanctions on Iran if a deal wasn’t forthcoming, that Iran wouldn’t be allowed to wriggle out of its non-proliferation responsibilities.
The deal that emerged affirms that Iran has the right to a peaceful nuclear program as set out in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Of more relevance is the question of Iran’s right to enrich uranium, which it insisted should be explicitly recognized in the text—something the P5+1 was reluctant to do.
The two sides clearly had armies of lawyers scrutinizing every word and, as is so often the case with diplomacy, semantics allowed both to claim victory. Kerry was keen to state that this “first step,” as he called it, did not allow Iran “a right to enrichment.” Zarif, however, claimed the opposite. And the text, which outlines the desire to find a comprehensive solution involving “a mutually defined enrichment program with practical limits” would seem to support him, albeit with qualified wording.
The basis of the deal is a six-month confidence-building period before a permanent agreement is reached. So for the next six months, Iran has committed to freezing uranium enrichment at 5 percent and converting its existing stockpiles of 20 percent enriched uranium to oxide form or lower-enriched uranium. It has also promised not to install any new enrichment centrifuges and to suspend activation of its advanced centrifuges. On top of this, it has agreed not to increase its stockpile of 3.5 percent enriched uranium and to halt any construction or installation at its Arak IR-40 heavy water production plant. (Enrichment will continue, but new stocks will be converted to the less dangerous oxide form.) The inspections regime will also be toughened.
In return, the P5+1 has agreed to some light sanctions relief while keeping the majority of measures in place. Among its concessions are an agreement to release around USD 4.2 billion of Iranian oil income frozen in foreign accounts and to temporarily provide relief on some sanctions, such as allowing Iran to trade in gold and precious metals, as well as lifting some sanctions on car and aircraft parts and petrochemicals. Certain Iranian banks will be able to buy humanitarian goods and medicines more easily.
The deal has already drawn condemnation from Israel, which objects to even minimal sanctions relief for concessions short of a full dismantling of the majority of Iran’s enrichment program. But Iran has made some significant concessions. The pace of the program has been slowed, and it will now be very hard for Iran to ‘break out’ and develop a nuclear weapon, should it so desire. The sanctions relief on the table leaves the main oil and banking sanctions untouched and is, at any rate, reversible.
Both sides seem pleased. Zarif was confident that the deal would result in the “removal of any doubts about the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program.” Kerry, meanwhile, called the deal the “first step that actually rolls back the Iran nuclear program today, and enlarges its breakout time.”
There is still a long way to go before a permanent agreement is reached, let alone before relations with Iran and the West, and especially the US, are fixed. But the deal is a positive first step. Rouhani must continue to push on with engagement despite the misgivings of Iran’s conservative establishment and Obama must head off the threat of new Iran sanctions from Congress, using his presidential veto if necessary. This story is, in many ways, one of two men determined to come closer together despite strong opposition at home. As the prospect of détente between Iran and the US increases, so will the pressure. They must resist it and finish what they have started.
All views expressed in this blog post are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, The Majalla magazine.
