IRAN: Inside nuclear talks, frustrating diplomacy
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No one expected a miracle. But faint hopes that historic talks Saturday in Geneva between Iranian diplomats and world powers over Iran’s nuclear program could lead to an immediate breakthrough were quickly dashed.
In truth, insiders were gearing up for the talks to fizzle days before they took place.
European officials say they urged the United States to send Undersecretary of State Willam J. Burns to the meeting in part to give Americans understanding of what they are up against in convincing ideologically hard-line Iranian officials close to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to halt enrichment of uranium, a process which can be used to create fuel for power plants or a nuclear bomb.
Despite recent positive remarks by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and others in Tehran’s foreign policy circles, Europeans say they’ve grown increasingly frustrated with Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, who they say talks without listening and never gives a straight answer.
“Jalili is a perfect representative of Ahmadinejad,” said a Western diplomat in Tehran.
In advance of the talks, Western diplomats downplayed expectations.
“The best that we can hope for is to prevent the situation from deteriorating,” said one European diplomat in Tehran.
Still, Jalili had begun to show more diplomatic savvy in recent months, tempering his public comments since taking over from the more pragmatic Ali Larijani last year.
But once the meeting was underway, it was clear that Iranians would refuse to budge. Instead of offering a yes-or-no answer on the so-called ‘freeze-for-freeze’ proposal trading no new Iranian centrifuges for no new sanctions, Jalili launched into a tiresome speech.
Here’s Cristina Gallach, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana’s spokeswoman, in a note to the Los Angeles Times:
The Iranians missed an opportunity to give a clear reponse to the ... paper which spells in a very clear manner the ‘freeze for freeze’.... They came with a counter proposal. This counter proposal is not at all appropriate, since it does not respect the time lines nor the scheme that we presented.
Of course, Iranians described the Iranian response in more glowing terms. According to a report by the official Islamic Republic News Agency, the hours-long meeting was a success. Jalili told IRNA:
We entered into negotiation with a positive approach and we presented our proposal package upon our joint concerns. We believe that for common concerns we need common cooperation upon collective obligations. By presenting our proposal package we offer such good potentials for a constructive cooperation in direction of peace, stability, security and democracy, indeed.
Iranians downplayed the presence of Burns, whose appearance marked the highest level diplomatic contact between Iran and the U.S. in 29 years. Some officials said the Iranians were unsure how to respond.
One European insider in Geneva said Jalili did not address the American’s comments directly.
The presence of Bill Burns was an extremely positive development, which unfortunately the Iranians did not put in [the] value as [they] should have done. Bill was clear, short, constructive. He spoke about the commitment of the U.S. to a negotiated agreement. Interestingly enough, Jalili did not reply specifically to his words, but continued making generic comments.
In truth, Jalili may have not made any response because he has no power. According to one Iranian analyst, he and his delegation are little more than messengers:
They go to Geneva and move their lips, but they don’t have any decisionmaking power. They come back to Tehran and report to the big figures in the shadows, who decide what to do next.
They’d better decide quickly. Iranians have already been slapped with four United Nations Security Council resolutions and three sets of economic sanctions for failing to halt their production of reactor-grade enriched uranium. Frustrated European, Russian, Chinese and American envoys in Geneva gave the Iranians two weeks to give a substantive, up-or-down response on the ‘freeze-for-freeze’ proposal.
‘Otherwise,’ said one official, ‘the noise on new sanctions will reappear.’
— Borzou Daragahi
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